Being Heard and Hearing Others.

I looked up ‘being heard’ on the internet. I could find one solitary poem about it, and a heap of business venture type ‘should-listen-in-order-to-make-the-sale' posts... Nothing more? Nothing about the most tiny-yet-valuable moment we can give another, or receive from another? Nope, nothing. And I am not surprised in fact; hearing, or being heard, is so darned rare it’s tragic. 

What do I even mean? I mean those times when you aren’t feeling that brilliant, you’ve no idea what to do about something, and you know no one is likely to know, yet also that it will work out in the end, but you wish it were soon.... You don't even want to say much about, you just let someone else know it's happening to you. You want to experience a little of the 'a problem shared about is a problem halved'. So you tell someone what’s going on for you and, if they don't plain ignore you, they either shrug and say 'Oh, it’ll be fine', or they can’t help (which wasn't what you asked for), or even that you’re imagining it... All ways of saying, “I don’t give a purple sh*t; I’ve my own problems, and I don’t want to catch yours.”  That old 'I don't want to get involved' cruelty. Worth remembering here the poet John Donne's important words, 'No man is an island…', which finishes with the reminder, 'because I am involved in mankind'.

Of course, you may you get the other arrogant ‘rescue service’, the ‘Why don’t you…?' Oh great, three words which basically say, ‘I know what you should have done to stop this, why didn’t you, you idiot? I would have done it, but you...well... tch!’ This one might be called the red-rag-to-a-bull sh*t. And with neither versions have you been heard, acknowledged, re-cognised, witnessed, and thus you feel utterly alone and having to handle it all on your own. 

Yes, sometimes people seem to be ‘dumping’, but this has become a tidy label to give someone who is asking for an ear about something which really pushes your own buttons. Something which you are trying desperately to pretend isn’t in your mood-repertoire. Something you wish to God you could sort out in your own life, if you even acknowledged its presence that is; buried so far down in your awareness under your “I’m fine’ cloak. The funny thing I have found is, as I go on sorting out the cr*p under my own cloaks, people don't seem to 'dump on me any more...

Here on planet earth something very simple happens each day. We humans just share how it is to be human. In all sorts of ways, from speaking, writing, posting on social media. And being human IS pretty darned humanly messy. Plans don’t work out in time - or ever. Dreams dribble dust from their lofty shelves. Ideals are smashed to smithereens all over the floor. And God-forbid anyone come along in a 'mess', and let you see from the outside what your own sadness, disappointment, confusion, anger, hurt, or, worst of all, fear might look like, because you’re trying so darned hard to pretend you’ve got it all sussed and the mood-crew left your building years ago....

But ‘bad moods’ are NOT catching. Low moods in another do NOT drag you down, unless you let them; a low mood in another might alert you to one in yourself which you are denying, but if low mood isn’t in you, it isn’t in you. And if high mood is in you, you’re quite ‘safe’. But don’t put that high on your low-mood friend either; rub salt in their wound, would you? 

Just Hear Them. 

Just stay in your own space and witness them.

See them.

Hear them.

Acknowledge them.

Agree with them quietly that it looks and sounds like it sucks.

Smile kindly - yes, kindly. Not mockingly, or jovially, or dismissively, just kindly. Which you can do the more you discover and allow your own messy human-ness and your own self-compassion for it. And, through your heart being open to their human-ness, and to your own, you'll be letting them know you know they’ll come through ok, and not alone, because you heard them.

And while you’re at it, do this for yourself, too, when you are low, because then you’ll be better at it for the next person who comes along, and they for you.

We can change the world this way.

Too simple? Well, simple works. Simple isn't easy, but simple is beauty-full.

My daughter taught me this years ago… When reassuring her, 'helping' her out of her low mood by 'helping' her understand her irritating teacher’s possible point of view, and all that it ‘might’ have been about, she stopped me and said, “Stop it! I know all this. I just want you to agree with me first, and then you can say all that stuff which will help. But not yet! Just hear me!”

She was, and is, so right. And I am still learning.

Just hear people. Read their words. See them. And ask this of others for your self. Because to be witnessed as we are at any moment is the greatest gift we can receive from another, and also to give another.

Wiggle room...

After yesterday's blog ( Please Just Be You ) I was asked to say more on the '7 billion people needing to shift a bit for my growth' ... For me, it's like this: I see my whole self as a big, jute sack of rice - when a little bit of me releases or contracts, every other little grain of rice inside me has to move around a tiny bit to accommodate this. If I compress my sack too tightly, there is no wiggle room, and things get awkward and often painful. If I allow movement within the fabric of my sack, the wee grains of rice can manoeuvre about more easily. 

Then I see the my world - the characters and players on stage with me at any period of time, and I on theirs - as grains of rice in an even bigger 'life sack'. When I change my mind on something - the place I live, my work methods, my intentions, the size of my dreams, my choices and actions - everyone else in 'my world' has to manoeuvre about a bit to accommodate this. The same goes when those around me do something 'different', needing me to wiggle a bit for their change to happen. And then this goes for the even bigger world - changes in our bodies, our worlds, our villages and towns, counties, countries, the whole world, and probably even our planet within the universe, and beyond...

There are grains of rice in me which may, having wiggled a bit to accommodate change in me or another, go back to where they were; they just had to wiggle to allow the other to change. Or things may change dramatically with not a grain of rice anywhere near where it was.

But wiggle room is needed, as is patience; wiggling takes time. It takes the time it takes, too; some wiggles are delicate and slow, requiring subtle changes a long way away from my particular grain of rice, and some are localised, smooth, swift, barely noticeable in the ease in which they occur.

But one thing I do know is wiggles happen. Change within or without requires much wiggle room, which benefits from a 'permissionary sack' which undulates to allow movement within, and both soft elastic grains and hard fulcrum-like grains in order to facilitate the shifts.

Isn't that just like life?! I have met those rice grains on my journey - within and without - which are soft and pliant, and then been brought up short by those which feel like rocks on my path. But like with the combustion engine - where the solidly immobile engine 'block' has to exist as a fulcrum, in order for everything else to move smoothly in sequence, in order to produce propulsion - these solid grains are in my worlds to assist my own movement. I, in turn, will often be a fulcrum-grain in another's sack. (And when I think about something like the world of politics - there's lots of fulcrum-grains out there just now!)

So, within a world of 7 billion beautiful grains of rice in the sack called planet earth, there is endless wiggling going on all the time. So, if the changes you are searching for aren't revealing themselves yet, maybe they are just still needing to wiggle. In that case, give them room, be flexible, soft, be ok with having to wiggle out of place in order to wiggle back into where you most need to be right now. And happy wiggling!

Be Anything You Want? No, Please Just Be You.

You know when those posts about ‘You can be anything you want to be; it only takes a decision’ come up? The ones which, on some days, give you a real boost? But on other days.... I’m talking about those days when you could happily crumple posts like this up into fire-lighting stuff and add a lit match, because they plain old hurt… 

Oh, that life were as simple as a decision. Yes, we can and do make them, but life is about a lot of other people than just us, and when we change out minds about something as big as Being Greater Than I Am Now, the others around us have to shift a bit too. And with 7 billion people on planet earth, that takes some patience and requires quite a lot of wiggle-room. 

So, I’m just saying here, I hear you when/if it’s one of those days for you, because I have them too. When it’s one of those days in which to be told your life is a little less than you would like it to be - you know, more bills in tomorrow, diary too full / too empty, book still not written, name not yet in lights, golf handicap still in the thousands, washing not done - because you clearly haven’t made a strong enough decision to be super-person (and obviously they have, or they wouldn’t be writing such posts... yet have they?), yes, one of those days when what you want to have happen is for someone to see you and say, ‘Tough sometimes, innit?  Hang in there right where you are now, and rest up a tiny moment. I think you’re awesome for being you. For having dreams and hopes. For wanting a good life. For wanting to shine, and share, and grow, and make a difference. Whether you make your dream today, tomorrow, or next decade, I still like you, and I thank you for being here, right now, as you. Make decisions all you like, and I will support you where you are and where you’ll be, and I will walk with you towards your dreams, but I wont ever tell you you ought to be there already.’

Keeping Watch….

Keeping Watch 

Frustration - rushing - impatience - even the dog wary....
What is this? 
This oh-so-familiar feeling? 
It’s that I want to be doing something other than that which I am doing now.
What?
I don’t know.
Stop then....
Can’t....
Can; it’s what you teach!
Yea, I should....
And then, 
Yes, 
I stop….
And not the suppression-like stop of 
“Count to ten! You naughty girl!”,
But the gentle pause of attention -
Compassionate attention, to me.
Compassionate, because it’s empty of judgement;
I left the plug open for all that to flow out before looking,
Because judgement is futile stuff; 
The stuff of old - 
Other’s stuff - 
Stuff of what isn’t,
And I need to discover what is.
So, what is...?
Is, is that I feel held up - 
Halted -
Stuck - 
Interrupted.
By?
By wilting flowers.
Hungry rabbits.
Noisy storms wreaking time-taking damage -
Rattling and rumbling - sleep interruptions.
Recalcitrant iPlayer
Messing me about.
Slow drivers and
Ornery traffic lights...
Getting in the way of
Me, getting there.
Where's there?
Over there - not here:
Not where I am now.
(Even if I, of course, am.)
What’s there?
Clarity.
Understanding.
Knowing.
Certainty.
New direction.
Progress.
Happening.
How do you know this?
From my shallow breath,
My scattered thinking,
My tightness and holdings,
The inner fight....
So, what to do...?
Nothing.
Just nothing.
Not stopping, 
Not pushing,
Not fixing,
Not holding,
Not repressing,
And not, not judging,
De-finite-ly not that....
Just non-doing no-thing.

Wait.
And wait waiting.
And waiting wait.
And notice....
Notice the whys and whens,
And shouldn’ts and oughtn’ts...
Notice how they physicalise within me....
And wait; wait with them.

Remember the light touch when I was an Alexander student - 
The quiet hands waiting with me,
Showing me how to embody the quiet pause,
How to release my mind’s net on my body.
Companioning me in the lonely, 
Rather scary no thing place - 
The neutral between gears - 
Where births my potential,
And where most wont stay long enough.
Reassuring hands saying, “This is ok’.
Not preventing me,
Not pushing me,
Just waiting with me.
Waiting until I heard,
And saw,
And felt myself
Witnessed
And understood
By me.

I am rushing because
I want more,
I want it now,
I want what I haven’t gone for
For far too long.
For ever.
And I want it now.
I want to step up,
To shine as me - 
Seen or unseen,
Shine nonetheless.
I want to drop
The veil of ‘mustn’t’.
Oughtn’t, shouldn’t.
My ball and chain of ‘What if?’
‘And, but, why, who, you…?’
Rolling, grindingly, away.

The hare and the tortoise; 
Is a good story,
But the hare is catching me up - 
The hares are about to win!
The story ending’s about to alter…
So, wake up and run!
Run, tortoise! Run!
You are worth it!
You are good enough!
You can, you can, you can!
Wake up!
Oh! Run!

Oh my! Oh yes!
Out of my way plants,
Rabbits,  storms and drivers!
Out of my way old beliefs,
Agreements, and habits!
I have places to go and people to reach!
Yet, also include 
The Immaculate Pause...
The waiting....
Wait for the tide,
Wait for the wind.
Pushing the river never worked for anyone.
The tide will turn each day - 
Watch:
Ride it then,
But don’t miss it.
The wind will back and veer;
Watch:
Be ready to respond as it does...

Move within waiting,
Wait within moving - 
Remember those gentle hands 
Teaching you how to pause in faith.
Remember how you teach that too,
Because you know it works so well.

Trust.
Be.
Wait.
Watch.
Then flow.......
Flow....
And happen!

It's Not All Your Fault - part 2, aka the Not Good Enough habit...

So, how does the be-friending of my self, instead of bashing myself, change things?

Well, what does your self-bashing self say to you?  To stop it, it has to be heard and questioned. 

Mine says things like, "Look at those old socks - dreadful… Your hair is awful; you look ridiculous… You house is a tip… You don't get anything done…. You're as lazy as s**t…. You should have done a; everyone else has… You ought not to have done b; other people don't… If you'd done x, you'd have achieved y by now…. Listen to that piano playing; you could have played like that if…. Well, other people just get on with it..." Blah, blah, blah-dee blah….

And then, from the inner agreement I made long ago to the brain-washing that, 'If you really wanted to, you could do anything if you try hard enough', comes my almost addictive desire to sniff out people who tell me I can fly to the moon through molten tar, with one arm strapped behind my back, whilst wearing lead boots, because, 'Look, I and everyone else can - what's wrong with you? You clearly aren't trying hard enough and obviously aren't good enough.' And as they are doing it, it must be true. Mustn't it….?

People saying, 'If I can do it, anyone can…' is actually pretty dodgy; no, not everyone can be 'amaaaaazing', and nor should everyone. What a monotonous world that would be! The entire population of planet Earth meeting at the top of Everest for tea, 7 billion people sailing around the world at the same time, and the same again playing phenomenal piano concertos every night - all fighting for mountain, sea, and stage room….no sponsors, no viewers, no audiences; a world without the inspiring variety we have now - without the quiet, unsung 'heroes' doing things which change and save lives every second. Every mother, father, partner, nurse, teacher, neighbour….go on for a moment filling in the blanks, and include your self.

So, I see now the magnetic pull of 'I can do anything (as long as it's massive) if I try hard enough' is the drug which feeds my 'not good enough' habit - watch me pick the most difficult things for me, and actually feel double bad because actually they are not very big at all. Double success through a double failure! And with a double hangover! 

How to change this? The same way as has worked for years: Stop. Just stop. Cease the Lemming-like rush towards 'be brilliant!' And in the space left, see what I can do, and want to do, where, and when…the what I am unique at. Then do that. This means leaving all the things I think I ought to do and not feeling bad about them. Which is something only I can decide is possible. And when the shock-horror-failure-feeling rises, to stay with it, acknowledge it, hear it, and most especially be kind to it, kind to me…. And when I hear again the tempting cry of the Be More Now bird - 'you must build, bigger, faster, more, now!' - to sit down, firmly, and hear my best, loving, kind self's take on it; is this going to lift me to the next, best version of me possible, or is it going to ask of me what I haven't got/don't actually want, and just feed my NGE (not good enough) habit? 

It's a question worth asking - I, like you, am here to be the fully and most appropriately me in the world, the best Annie I can be, not the best someone else, however like the 'brilliant other' they extol me to be. Can I be the great me I am?  And can you be the great you you are? Or will I (and you?) go on trying to be the 'them-me' I think I ought to be? 

So, beware the 'Be Better Than You Already Are' brigade; go find the 'Be You At The Top of Your Own Voice' support team; I think they will serve you better to rise and to shine. That's what I am doing for me now. 

It is Not All Your Fault! Part 1.

What an extraordinary thing it is to receive a stern talking to - from oneself….. And what a blessing…

There was a morning a while back when there was a rapidly rising sense of panic, and an echo - and I mean in a nanosecond - of all the old destructive thoughts of times gone by… But, in an instance, a part of me leapt in, and stood up, tall and strong, and I found myself telling myself…

"Stop it, now!!" 

I was somewhat scared by this voice's forcefulness myself, and as to what remonstrations I was about to hear…. But it went on… 

"Enough! Now! It is not all your own fault; it's no one's fault; it just is. Even when you try your hardest, sometimes things happen, no matter what. And sometimes things don't happen, no matter what. And everyone else does not get it right all the time, or know what to do all the time, or never loses it. That is just your belief habit.

They, those that told you so, well, they were wrong to tell you everyone else could get it right all the time, and that you should, too. Their regret-full shame was simply being projected onto you; the shame and fear that they hadn't found the way to everlasting right-ness, with the resulting feelings they were so afraid to feel, and which - out of love - they didn't want you to feel, too. A well-meant, but futile effort, because Life. Just. Is. 

You are doing your best, and you are also human. So quit the self-bashing and the fear-mongering, by your self, of your self. Self-kindness. Self-encouragement. Self-friendship. This is the only way, or it really will be a tough old life for you. And, what's more, this is how you will truly be kind to others - allowing your own imperfections allows them theirs, too."

And I stood motionless and clear - stilled, surprised, and soothed - by whom…? Ruefully, humbly, yet delightedly, I had to concur that it was by a part of my own self - Me. Always there, knowing this in pencil, but never before so loudly - and now inked in, forcefully, through love...

How blessed and cared for we are, by our own beautiful and kind self - if we stop to listen to the part which loves us, instead of endlessly tuning in to our critic. 

What does your kind self say to your troubled self, when you listen?

Listen to your rants like granny would….

Sometimes, just sometimes, (aka often in Cornwall, in autumn, when they love to close 50% of the roads for repairs) I find myself in the state of utter despair, like tonight; a journey to a wonderful day in Delabole was marred by The Roads… This morning it took 1.5 hours to Truro from me (usually 20-25 minutes) due to (I later discovered, sadly) an accident, and a l-o-n-g detour round the lanes was followed by not getting fuel as I was, by then, SO late. Easy; get it on the way home, no problem. But at the end of the day I followed friends leading us in a convoy to a lovely pub for some supper, but I knew I could get fuel in Wadebridge afterwards. No; the one 'open all hours' garage wasn't. With about 10 mile's worth left of fumes, I asked a man in the Spar shop who said, "Bodmin - good luck!". I crawled the 8 miles to Bodmin (in rain, fog, and tempest - of course) and made it. smile emoticon Fuelled up I headed on for the A30, a fast, clear road home…which, at the actual slip-road entrance, announced to me it was closed, follow diversion….which I did….which took me the 8 miles back to….WADEBRIDGE!! So, as I again, an hour later, passed the 'open-all-hours' garage (which the man in Wadebridge Spar had announced to be 'Yea, useless; opens and shuts at a whim') I noticed I had driven a 22 mile circle…. But, nil desperandum, on, on, to collect the dog from Truro and get home…but at the turning to Truro, "Road Closed - follow diversion"…. Suffice to say, the windscreen bent outwards a little in small rhythmic movements in time to the 'prose' describing my feelings!! Why was this a form of self-kindness? Well, read on….

As I waited to drift off to sleep later I thought about this oh-so-common, not-really-earth-shattering life event and wondered… I felt interestingly 'clear'… Something was missing? Ah yes, the guilt. Shame. Embarrassment. Awkwardness. Those things which show up at the first sign of 'I shouldn't have lost it; I should know better by now and have stayed ultra calm and serene, after all, ranting makes no difference'… Or more correctly, 'You shouldn't have…' You? Why not I? Who's speaking to me inside then? Ah yes, those judges on the shoulder, like the ancestral parrot re-playing the old instructions which only serve to keep us down, disciplined, demure. Well, mine had flown off. So I bent the windscreen (windshield), but freely and openly, leaving no after-effects, because of two things. 

One - self-kindness in the permission to feel feelings. I was aware I could have ranted with all the words along the lines of 'it's not fair!', and 'How could they?', but I now know that's pretty futile and only serves to have me observe myself with a certain 'Oh dear…'. But I could tell the road before me what I wanted to be heard; that I was tired! I didn't want this! Grrrrrrrrr! It was one of those darker-than-dark nights where the headlights seemed to only penetrate a few feet into the blackness. Rain and spray, fog and 'mizzle' (a particularly 'delightful' Cornish rain which is fine, soaking, and travels at you sideways at speed) coupled with tons of wet leaves, hills and sharp bends was demanding. I did not need this! I know people have real things they do not need, but right now this was mine, and I am human, and tired, and actually quite scared of the conditions. And I told it as it was - loudly. I let my self be heard and acknowledged by my self. I work in a field (Alexander Technique) where the saying no to unwanted tensions and reactions is the basis of the work, but to me this can lead to a covert suppression. Sometimes the need is to simply let the feelings OUT. We know it's ok to do this on violins, drums, pianos, but balk at the use of our own voice and lyrics! 

So, I did, and, two, I played it. I had had a day 'Fooling' - the Art of Play, Lila-like, and it's a truly wonderful thing to do. So I played the angry and tired person meeting diversion signs. Just played it - like we would go see in a theatre, or on telly, and where we would cry-with-laughter in recognition of the 'little things' we humans find so irritating and tough. But how strange it is that we suppress, ignore, shame our natural tendencies to show frustration…. Maybe if we could all show it more, we could all give others permission to show theirs, and then, amazingly, we probably wouldn't all feel so frustrated! Having played it out, what showed up for me in its place was an easy gratitude.

So today, play your rants! Be kind to yourself and hear your feelings. Stamp your foot and say the line I had in a school play a million years ago, "It jolly well isn't fair! I'm going home to bed!" Then there's no need for projection onto others, judgement of self or others, and no need to suppress and compress into tension and the later 'stress-hangover' feelings. 

Happy rantings!