Life on the line.
What does that mean exactly? I chose it because for me, it has an infinite number of meanings. A line is something that connects two points, two people, two things. It could be a path, a journey. It is about connectivity. It could be a spectrum, a continuum. Perhaps a spoke on a wheel that leads us back into the light from whence we come. And no matter what, we are all on it. For those of you who have done Personal Best with me, you would know I have overcome a huge fear of spiders. Spiders now have a totally different message for me. Thousands of small lines in their webs all about connection and creativity. Lines.
My journey since my youngest son's diagnosis has been about lines. About the people I love, family, friends, patients, everyone in our lives who have reached out to let us know they are still there. I have read books about social skill and theory of mind to try and relearn all the things I am lucky to be gifted at so that I could break them down moment by moment to try to teach them to my son. I took an NLP course which is Neuro Linguistic Programming, thinking it would help me with the visual social cues, but instead it took me on an incredible journey of mind. How our brains encode experiences, how if one doesn't like the experience, we can save the lesson and remove any negative associations. I learned that each of us has our own truth, but the important thing to realize is that, that truth is entirely dependant on our own perspective. We are all like hermit crabs crawling around in our own shells. When we meet someone, we stop, take off our shell, and hold it up in front of our faces so that we can filter what they are saying through our map of the world.. That map is composed of all of our experiences and it frames our beliefs about the world, our truth. If your life has taught you that people leave, or that people are out to screw you, that becomes your map of the world. Even if you meet someone who doesn't have that objective you will view them that way. We would die to prove that our own truth is right even when it does not serve our highest good to do so.
Back to that line. Perspective. You might have noticed that the picture I chose is a road leading off in the distance. An artistic example of perspective. Michelle Garcia Winner is a professional who deals with teaching autistic kids social skills. She has developed something called Theory of Mind. This is a body of knowledge which deals with how well we all are able to shift perspectives. A severely autistic child if asked what the teacher sees, will describe what he or she sees because they cannot comprehend that there is a perspective other than theirs. That another person is somehow separate from them, could have different thoughts, feelings. What I realized when really thinking about it is that all of us fall somewhere on the line of perspective. Myself, I often have difficulty making decisions around people because I find it relatively easy to take other peoples perspectives. NLP is the art of putting down your own crab shell, or map of the world, and asking the right questions so that slowly you can step around behind someone else's crab shell and suddenly be able to see the world through their eyes. I have made use of this in my office with one of my receptionists. She told me she was having some difficulty with patient conflicts. I asked her to think about it differently. I asked her to consider that human beings have a heirarchy of needs very nicely described by Maslow. And to make the assumption that most people behave in a way that is consistent to get their needs met. With this as your guide, start to ask them questions that will lead you around behind their crab shell ( yes if you ask me in the comments, I will give you a quick list of these questions) so that you are able to see their perspective. And guess what? When you are able to see the world through their crab shell suddenly you will have a fantastic ahha moment! And you will see immediately how you can rectify their issue. Think of the potential to end world conflict if all of us could learn to do this. Think of the harmony in your day to day relationships. However crazy someone else's actions seem to us, I can guarantee that if you could see it from their perspective with all of their map in place, it would make sense. What a blessing and a gift to be given the vision and clarity to see the world from such a beautiful perspective. Guess what? We just moved to the right on that line. We just increased our ability to see the world from anothers perspective. We have journeyed, we have connected. Life on the line.
I will start tomorrow with a bit about life above that line, but at the moment I have a starving family who are all sitting quietly, lovingly and close to me, honouring my new found passion. It is time that I honour them and go and feed them!
In love and light,
Kathryn
What does that mean exactly? I chose it because for me, it has an infinite number of meanings. A line is something that connects two points, two people, two things. It could be a path, a journey. It is about connectivity. It could be a spectrum, a continuum. Perhaps a spoke on a wheel that leads us back into the light from whence we come. And no matter what, we are all on it. For those of you who have done Personal Best with me, you would know I have overcome a huge fear of spiders. Spiders now have a totally different message for me. Thousands of small lines in their webs all about connection and creativity. Lines.
My journey since my youngest son's diagnosis has been about lines. About the people I love, family, friends, patients, everyone in our lives who have reached out to let us know they are still there. I have read books about social skill and theory of mind to try and relearn all the things I am lucky to be gifted at so that I could break them down moment by moment to try to teach them to my son. I took an NLP course which is Neuro Linguistic Programming, thinking it would help me with the visual social cues, but instead it took me on an incredible journey of mind. How our brains encode experiences, how if one doesn't like the experience, we can save the lesson and remove any negative associations. I learned that each of us has our own truth, but the important thing to realize is that, that truth is entirely dependant on our own perspective. We are all like hermit crabs crawling around in our own shells. When we meet someone, we stop, take off our shell, and hold it up in front of our faces so that we can filter what they are saying through our map of the world.. That map is composed of all of our experiences and it frames our beliefs about the world, our truth. If your life has taught you that people leave, or that people are out to screw you, that becomes your map of the world. Even if you meet someone who doesn't have that objective you will view them that way. We would die to prove that our own truth is right even when it does not serve our highest good to do so.
Back to that line. Perspective. You might have noticed that the picture I chose is a road leading off in the distance. An artistic example of perspective. Michelle Garcia Winner is a professional who deals with teaching autistic kids social skills. She has developed something called Theory of Mind. This is a body of knowledge which deals with how well we all are able to shift perspectives. A severely autistic child if asked what the teacher sees, will describe what he or she sees because they cannot comprehend that there is a perspective other than theirs. That another person is somehow separate from them, could have different thoughts, feelings. What I realized when really thinking about it is that all of us fall somewhere on the line of perspective. Myself, I often have difficulty making decisions around people because I find it relatively easy to take other peoples perspectives. NLP is the art of putting down your own crab shell, or map of the world, and asking the right questions so that slowly you can step around behind someone else's crab shell and suddenly be able to see the world through their eyes. I have made use of this in my office with one of my receptionists. She told me she was having some difficulty with patient conflicts. I asked her to think about it differently. I asked her to consider that human beings have a heirarchy of needs very nicely described by Maslow. And to make the assumption that most people behave in a way that is consistent to get their needs met. With this as your guide, start to ask them questions that will lead you around behind their crab shell ( yes if you ask me in the comments, I will give you a quick list of these questions) so that you are able to see their perspective. And guess what? When you are able to see the world through their crab shell suddenly you will have a fantastic ahha moment! And you will see immediately how you can rectify their issue. Think of the potential to end world conflict if all of us could learn to do this. Think of the harmony in your day to day relationships. However crazy someone else's actions seem to us, I can guarantee that if you could see it from their perspective with all of their map in place, it would make sense. What a blessing and a gift to be given the vision and clarity to see the world from such a beautiful perspective. Guess what? We just moved to the right on that line. We just increased our ability to see the world from anothers perspective. We have journeyed, we have connected. Life on the line.
I will start tomorrow with a bit about life above that line, but at the moment I have a starving family who are all sitting quietly, lovingly and close to me, honouring my new found passion. It is time that I honour them and go and feed them!
In love and light,
Kathryn
No comments:
Post a Comment