What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
A communication breakdown and an emergency calm technique
I know you don’t speak Yiddish but
Gaaaaaaah! You’re barely two minutes into the conversation and all of a sudden you’re in a fight. Or not in a fight, but irritable enough to get in one. The words have somehow gotten twisted together. Everything is stuck. The thing you meant is getting tangled up with the thing your partner in Miscommunication 101 thinks you meant. You’re in a plonter as they say in Yiddish. You know, a confused, messy web-like disaster. A pain in the tush of a mistake of a hard time.
Your patterns are never more present than in your communication. There’s a ton of information to pick up on — when you can stay calm enough to listen in and figure out what’s going on. And that pretty much sums up your mission when you’re working on any aspect of your issues: 1. stay centered and 2. scoop up information about your patterns so you can use it to tweak them.
In this newsletter I’ll throw out another quick, user-friendly technique for getting calm fast, but first I want to talk about a specific communication pattern that really needs some attention: the Hedge.
Excuse me, but you’re about to trip over that hedge
The “hedge” is a very useful concept, and my use of it comes courtesy of Dr. Suzette Haden Elgin (linguist, writer and one of my all-time favorite thinkers). The hedge is a linguistic maneuver that allows you to preface the thing you’re going to say with a disclaimer — it’s a kind of pre-emptive backtracking. Elgin calls it “stealing the listener’s response by predicting it and announcing the prediction.”
For example, when someone says to you, “You’re probably going to hate this idea, but …”, this person is setting up a protective shield of sorts. You either have to pretend you like the idea, or you admit you don’t like it and then the person says, “Oh, see, I knew you wouldn’t. I told you so.”
Or take Elgin’s somewhat goofier example: “I know this is a silly thing to say, but I’m afraid of plums.” The hedge obstructs the pathways of communication, makes the hedger out to be manipulative and/or insecure, and also leads to uncomfortable situations for all parties involved.
Trimming the hedge (meet the need)
What’s really being said here? A hedge is a way of saying, “promise you won’t hate me” or “promise you won’t be mad”. Which is, of course, a promise that can’t be made. What’s really happening here is a need: for understanding, acceptance, reassurance, listening or comfort. So get in there and meet the unspoken need. Speak the need out loud.
When you catch yourself about to hedge, stop and pay attention. What are you really wanting to say? What is the need hidden in your hedge? For example, “I know you’re not going to like this, but” might really mean, “I am afraid that you will be mad at me.” Recognize the emotion (fear) and the need (reassurance). Next, meet the need with some conscious, honest compassion (“Even though I have this fear, I am allowed to have fear. I’m human, this fear doesn’t define me, it’s just a temporary part of what’s going on for me right now.”).
Now that you know what the issue is and you have met your need, address the issue as an issue instead of hiding it in the shrubbery. I mean, the hedge. In this example you could say, “Hey, I want to talk with you about our finances. I’m feeling nervous bringing this up because I need to know that you are going to listen to me. I’m also afraid that you’ll be angry because last time we talked there was a lot of yelling, and I want us to get better at communicating.”
If you are NOT the Hedge-er
Someone hedging at you and it’s driving you crazy? First: meet your own need. (“Even though this is driving me crazy, I recognize that this person is having trouble expressing a fear or a need. I am allowed to have this frustration. I am getting better at practicing patience.”)
Next step: practice being a language detective! Recognize the hedge, determine the person’s need, and see what you can do to help. For example, “It seems like you are feeling worried about discussing this issue with me. Is there something I can do to make this conversation more comfortable?”
Emergency Calm Technique
Sometimes, you’re already in too much of a plonter to step out of the hedges. In this case, apply one of the emergency calm techniques that I’m always going on about. Try this one (great when you’re on the phone with a champion hedger)!
Take the index and middle fingers (both hands) to center of chin, pressing gently. Bring the thumbs directly below them to the underside of the jaw. Keep ring fingers and pinkies curled into the hands or in any other comfortable position. If you’re seated you can rest your elbows on a table or on your knees. The pressure of the fingers should be palpable, but not painful. Close your eyes and breathe slowly. Count to twelve.
Everything a tiny bit better now? It should be.
Want more? Two great resources and a chance to support your local bookstore . . .
1. Suzette Haden Elgin, The Last Word on the Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense
(Tons of useful information about how we use language, how our brains work, how to change our communication patterns).
2. Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
(A useful guide for effective communication, using compassion, honesty and integrity — the language is kinda cheesy, but the concepts are absolutely on target and you’ll get all sorts of value from this practice).
And feel free to share any of your own examples of hedge/counter-hedge.
The truth about competition
No, seriously, where are all the nut jobs?
I finally got around to watching Word Play last night — a 90 minute homage to “puzzle master” Will Shortz and his wonderful world of crosswordsmithery. “Finally” because everyone I know has already told me at least once to see it.
They were right. It was fascinating. But aside from the fun of watching smart thinkers like Ken Burns, Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton wax delirious over their daily fix of wordishness, there was something else going on there.
The thing that really stuck out was how noticeably not crazy everyone was. Sure, some of the more seasoned crossword puzzle fans were a little on the neurotic side. But that was more a case of being from New York. Or Jewish. Or both. No one seemed to have Big Issues. They just really liked their puzzles.
In Scrabble, on the other hand, you can pretty much assume that everyone’s got Issues. If you don’t believe me (or even if you do), read Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. This un-put-down-able (oh, why is that not a word?) volume is one of the most compelling explorations of addictive behavior that I’ve ever read.
I’ll give you the short version. Reporter Stefan Fatsis sets out to investigate the world of hard-core Scrabble, meets a bunch of troubled people, and ultimately becomes sucked into an obsessive, control-hungry world that is clearly limiting his ability to think straight. But he just can’t stop. And even as you scratch your head while you read, you totally identify with him.
What’s the deal?
The difference, as far as I can tell, has to do with the nature of competition.
Crossword-puzzling is generally a solitary endeavor. The extreme players time themselves, so in a sense they are always in competition with their last puzzle. But otherwise, it’s just you and the squares. Actual competition only happens once a year when the crossword puzzlers meet up at their convention. In between they do their daily puzzle. If there were five puzzles a day in the New York Times, things might be different. But the puzzlers have one puzzle a day, they do it and it’s done.
The serial Scrabblers, though, are always in competition. They play for hours every day. There are clubs in every town and competitions all over the world. Not to mention Internet sites to troll. Levels to attain. Statistics to track. Tournaments to enter. Regulation books to memorize. Scrabble has no boundaries.
And when the Scrabblers aren’t actually competing, they’re memorizing lists of words, testing themselves with anagrams and looking for anything that will give them an edge in using their brain more effectively. (I know, if they were using Shiva Nata they could take the game to a new level, but that’s not the point).
So competition is bad?
Not necessarily. When competition defines you, it’s bad. When you allow yourself to only feel as good as someone else has ranked you, that’s a problem. Bottom line: when outside legitimacy becomes the internal standard, you’re going to end up with Big Issues.
I’m not saying that Scrabble messed these people up. Many had issues before they found Scrabble. A lot of them were drawn to the world of professional Scrabble because of obsessive, detail-oriented tendencies. And if you hang out with anyone (especially yourself) for any degree of time, you are going to end up uncovering a lot of “stuff”. We all have our “stuff”. Learning how it works and what we can do about it is one of the amazing and rewarding challenges of being alive.
And competition is always going to bring up your “stuff”.
What you want to be able to do is to meet yourself where you are, with your stuff, and figure out what yet-to-be-met need is hiding underneath your stuff.
Meeting the Need — Case #1:
One of my coaching clients has a fledgling yoga teaching business. She’s dealing with a lot of angst around competition, and what-ifs about her students outgrowing her. And on top of that, there’s an extra layer of guilt for not being able to just let go of the worry. When we dug in and uncovered her needs, there was a lot asking to be acknowledged: needs for appreciation, trust, support and stability.
We took this information, and worked on creating reminders that the worry is natural, normal and temporary. Talking to the needs erased the guilt and helped the worry disappear. She realized that as her students become successful teachers in their own right, their success reflects back to her, and also gives her the opportunity to help them with their own competition issues when that time comes. Without the worry, the situation reframed itself practically on its own.
Meeting the Need — Case #2:
There was a nice piece in the most recent issue of Inc. Magazine in which Norm Brodsky gives advice to a guy who had just learned that Starbucks was moving in around the corner from his tiny cafe. Of course Inc. isn’t into the whole “need oriented” approach, but it’s clear from the article that the owner’s needs were to feel 1. safe and 2. appreciated.
Brodsky helped the owner meet these needs by reminding him of the power of the personal story behind the business. Together they were able to take advantage of the unique ingredients that make his warm, homey, happy coffee shop what it is. Meeting the owner’s needs uncovered the differentiator. Focusing on the home-grown, community-oriented face of his business helped the coffee shop owner set off on a successful campaign to champion the cafe. Sure, the Starbucks is there, but he doesn’t worry anymore.
Letting go of the need for outside legitimacy
Need-meeting is hard. It’s scary to look at places of hurt and vulnerability. That’s why it’s normal to want to ignore them or bulldoze through them. The trick is being willing to practice saying to yourself, “Okay, here I am. Here’s my stuff. Here’s what’s going on for me right now. How can I help?”
The truth is, there is always competition.
If you’re dealing with people around you who need to do everything better than you do, just recognize their need for acknowledgment. Recognize your own need for acknowledgment. Give yourself the support and encouragement you need so that you can separate your “stuff” from their “stuff”.
And if you’re dealing with business competition, there will be times when you’ll need to work hard to differentiate yourself. And there will be times when you’ll need to work hard to recognize the goals and dreams you and your competitors have in common. The most important thing is that through the entire process your focus is on your needs: figuring out what they are and how you can meet them.
A useful reminder phrase: “Even though I’m stuck in this competition cycle, I am ready to let go of the need for outside legitimacy, so that I can be the one to remind myself how great I am.”
It’s counter-intuitive, but it works. And here’s the zinger of the paradox: the better you are at releasing the need for outside legitimacy, the more likely you are to receive praise and support from others. The trick is developing an internal system of encouragement and support that feels real for you. Anything from the outside is just a pleasant reflection of that system, but it doesn’t determine your value. The good stuff comes from within.
Take your time. The best practice is just looking for a need in any given situation, and letting that need talk to you. This communication will help you come up with great answers. And later you can take those answers and, if it still seems important to you, kick butt on the Scrabble board. Or in my case, the Boggle board. As they say in the yoga world, it’s all practice.
More ways to work on your patterns
Exacerbating your patterns or learning from them?
When I was teaching in Berlin last year, a series of bizarre and marvelous coincidences landed me a house-sitting gig in a gorgeous house in Steglitz, a quiet little neighborhood in the west side of the city. While I know east Berlin like the back of my hand, this part of town was completely new and unfamiliar for me.
To walk to the train station you had to cross a bridge, from which you could see for miles (okay, kilometers) around. If you turned your head to the left, you could determine easily whether or not your train was coming soon enough to warrant picking up the pace.
If you turned your head, that is. Which I could never remember to do in time. By the time I remembered, I would find myself already inside the train station, wondering how quickly to scamper down the stairs, having not the slightest idea whether the train was five minutes away or already about to pull into the station.
This may seem a rather small problem. First of all, as some of you already know, I am blessed with a bizarre form of transportation luck — I rarely have to wait for a train. Second, it’s Germany. Miss one train and it’s no big deal. Another one will show up exactly six minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, or whenever the sign says it will.
Still, it was getting a little ridiculous. I mean, I’m a patterns expert. I teach awareness techniques. And I’d developed a blind spot — literally — where one simple movement of the head could have saved me time, energy and potential aggravation.
Luckily I remembered in the nick of time that even a seemingly innocuous pattern follows the same rules as any other. In today’s “here’s a technique for working on your habits” bit, I’ll explain exactly what I did and talk a bit more about the practice of “learning from your pattern without judging yourself for having it”. Enjoy!
Technique: asking questions; planting clues
You’re a good habits detective, so you’re always asking questions. Even better, you won’t accept the seemingly obvious answers at face-value without doing some digging first.
Note: if you ask a question and the answer you get isn’t very nice, that’s probably your internal distress talking and not the real answer you are looking for. Bear in mind the words of my teacher in Tel Aviv who used to say, “everything that speaks against me is an illusion.” I’ll demonstrate how this works with sample “useful” and “non-useful” answers.
Useful question #1: What am I learning from this pattern?
Non-useful answer: “Um, clearly you’re an incompetent flake who never pays attention, it’s pathetic.”
Useful answer: “Okay, I’m noticing that I tune out when I’m walking. I’m very aware of inner thoughts, but not of my surroundings. I’m also recognizing some guilt around feeling like I “should” be able to be more aware of what’s going on around me.”
Useful question #2: What can I do to acknowledge the feelings that come up in response to this situation?
Non-useful answer: “Get over it already, &@*#.”
Useful answer: “I think I am feeling frustrated when I expect myself to be able to do something, and I’m not able to do it. It sounds like I could use some encouragement.”
Useful question #3: What can I do that can help me implement what I’ve learned, while giving myself what I need?
Non-useful answer: “You can stop talking to yourself, for one thing.”
Useful answer: “It seems like I could plant some ‘clues’ along the road to remind me to be in awareness. That big sign on the cafe starts with an ‘L’ — I can make a point of saying “LEFT!” every time I see it. I can hum a song with the word “LEFT” in it. I can make the whole trip to the train station be about awareness exercises, where I set my mind to noticing all sorts of details instead of defaulting into daydream mode. It could even be kind of fun. And even if it takes me a couple of times to look for the train, at least I’ll be practicing awareness — and getting better at motivating myself through encouragement too.”
Apply!
Where do you need to have these gentle reminders in your life? When you are lighting the cigarette or opening the refrigerator you are already “in the train station”. Where are the little openings within your default patterns where you can sneak in and remind yourself to pay attention, respond with kindness, and give yourself love?
Your mission
Get on the case and go undercover! Commit to the process by carrying a notebook with you everywhere to jot down your observations and realizations. Tur on all your senses of perception and start building a profile of your patterns. Remember that what seems obvious or trivial isn’t necessarily so.
Detective exercise for being in the process
Carry a notebook with you to jot down clues. What are two things you notice about yourself when you’re on the street? At work? While purchasing something? When you are helping someone? There are clues and messages everywhere! Get going!
Fill in the blank
“My life would be so much better if I could just ________________.”
Or maybe actually:
“My life would be so much better if I could just stop ________________.”
That’s a clue.
This is your brain on patterns
Here’s what science tells us about the brain: billions of neurons in a giant network, all capable of connecting and communicating with each other in their cool electrochemical way. In other words, unlimited possibilities.
There are unlimited ways that these points can interconnect and, by doing so, take you to new places. So many points to access your potential and do things you never believed possible. The brain is malleable and receptive to new patterns taking hold. Theoretically.
In reality though, even though you can stop doing things the way you’ve always done them, generally you don’t. And not just you. Everyone. Me too.
Why? Because it’s easier to slide back into the patterns you know. The familiarity feels safe and it doesn’t involve any work. Something triggers an emotional reaction and before you know it, there you are. When you follow the familiar, old way of thinking and doing, the grooves created by neurons bouncing along the same old paths get deeper and more ingrained. You default into the familiar place where everything seems to be against you or just going wrong. And it takes more effort to remind yourself to step onto a new path.
Say, you’re not a stranger in these parts, are you?
These default places feel comfortable but they are not your friends. On the other hand, while they are preventing you from grasping what is really going on, they are also not your enemies. Instead, think of them as sign posts in your mind. Every time you revert to your go-to emotional reaction, you’re getting a piece of information if you care to read the signs.
“Hey, whoah, here you are again.”
“Look familiar? Yup, you’ve been here before.”
“Want to be somewhere else instead? How ’bout heading thataway for a change?”
It’s easy to treat these familiar places (resentment, sadness, rage) like a refuge. It’s tempting to snuggle up and wrap yourself in your anger and fear to avoid doing something different. Or maybe it just seems like the only thing you know how to do is to keep fighting with yourself and the world, even if it’s keeping you stuck.
The road less traveled and a good way to get there (6 steps)
1. Acknowledge
“Okay, here I am.” No need to kick the signposts. It’s useful information to know where you are even if you don’t feel like being there. This is you being angry, hurt or frustrated.
2. Agree
“I’m allowed to feel whatever it is I’m feeling. Guess what? I’m human. I’m allowed to feel frustrated, angry and sad. It doesn’t say anything bad about me.” This is you letting yourself be angry, hurt or frustrated.
3. Take one step back
“I am ready to learn from what this feeling is telling me, without having to step inside it.”
This is you paying attention to your feelings.
4. Recognize a need
“It seems like this anger is trying to keep me safe. It’s a way of not feeling vulnerable.”
Or maybe: “It feels as though this sadness is a way to avoid asking for comfort.”
This is you learning from your pattern now that you have stepped away from it a little.
5. Meet the need (ask for something that fills it)
“Even though I’m used to taking refuge in anger or sadness to protect myself, I’d like to ask myself to find another way to give myself comfort (or protection or trust or support).”
This is you responding to an emotion rather than being the emotion. You are replacing the hurt around the need with the thing that can take care of the need.
6. Recognize the new place
“Every time I do something even slightly differently than before, I’m consciously and actively changing and tweaking the pattern.”
This is you giving yourself credit for being in the process — and noticing the results.
Patterns can trip you up or they can show you where to go
As my teacher Andrey Lappa likes to say, “There is good experience and there is useful experience.” Gradually you will shift your focus from what a pain it is to be stuck again to what you can learn from that stuck moment. Not by fighting with yourself, but by slowly, consciously talking yourself through this process so you can hop over and slide somewhere else. A little kindness is always a good thing too.
It takes some practice but it’s worth it. Here’s the thing: when you can interact with your patterns in a calm, intelligent and creative way, they no longer control you. You have choices. And direction. You get “light bulb moments” where everything clicks. You know what to do and you run with it. No doubt and no second-guessing yourself. And good things happen — every time.
When nothing seems to be working (crank up intuition!)
When you get that “green light feeling” about something and you run with it, good things happen. The rest of the time, however, you second-guess yourself until it’s second nature.
The best way to turn off the fog is to tune in to intuition. Intuition itself can sound like kind of a foggy thing, so let’s clear this up a little. By intuition I mean “useful information that only part of you is aware of”, and by tuning in I mean “if this stuff were made conscious you could actually be using your amazing gifts and talents, not to mention getting a heck of a lot more done.”
There are two parts to connecting to the hidden body of knowledge and inspiration that we call intuition.
Part of making friends with intuition is actually getting in touch with the parts of your brain and nervous system that are saying GO GO GO or STOP STOP STOP. The other part is learning when — and how — to trust those instincts.
And since we’ve been talking a lot recently about the second part (dissolving fear and releasing anxiety), I thought it would be fun to do some thinking around the other side: talking to the brain. When you speak the brain’s language, it speaks back. And sometimes it says some pretty neat things.
Keep in mind that the brain is a polyglot, speaking several languages, but its native tongue is waves.
The brain is designed to be on the lookout for waves in order to process information. Its job is basically to synch itself up to any waves in order to have clear communication. This is incidentally why it’s never a good idea to listen to discordant music — when your brain tries to synch up and can’t, the resulting confusion causes pain and distress.
Quiet the mind, talk to the brain
It’s practically a cliche to tell someone to stop and breathe in a stressful situation. But there’s a reason it works. Breath occurs in waves which the brain then “reads” and synchronizes itself to. The more smooth and steady the waves of the breath, the more quiet and peaceful the brainwaves. Once the brain is sending out this kind of calm messaging to the rest of your system, you automatically de-stress.
Meditation often gets shoved into a “wacky spirit stuff” compartment as a purely mystical endeavor. However, on another level, it’s really just about taking the time to synch the brainwaves to breath-waves, so that the brain can quiet down enough to begin communicating subconscious information.
Another useful way to use wave movement to communicate with the brain is manipulating the organs of the body into wave and spiral flows. This is the smart basis of many yoga and martial art movement systems, and especially true for Shiva Nata which uses complex patterns to create new neural connections in the brain, helping you access hidden information and abilities.
And if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area , I’m leading a workshop this weekend on how to use the body and brain simultaneously to power up your intuitive abilities. (This is not to be missed and will not be repeated.)
And if you don’t have the opportunity to take this live class, take a minute now to synch up brain and breath. Instead of just vacuously counting to ten, or guilting yourself into sitting down for a forced meditation, just allow your inhale and your exhale to gently even out. (Counting four in and four out is usually a good place to start).
See if you can imagine the gentle curve of the wave on a diagram, and your brainwaves matching themselves up to these new shapes. Maybe you can hear the quiet, comforting whooshing of water flow as waves wash in and out of your consciousness. Or maybe you can feel the soft push and pull of movement as the brain and breath are linking up, hand in hand. Ask yourself what you need to know. Say yes to the possibility of receiving new information; recognize that you have options you hadn’t counted on. And then give those planted seeds time to grow, and return to your day with this quiet, comfortable headspace.
You’ll know when the brain is speaking to you because it will be whispering sweet waves of encouragement and motivation. And until then, keep consciously connecting to the huge untapped power of your mind by using wave-speak to your advantage, and being open to your own potential. Say yes and breathe. And give your duck a hug!