Alternate reality

Before you throw your hands up in the air, and think I've finally lost it, I don't mean alternate reality in any other way than an alternative way of looking at a past event or memory.

Yesterday's news about Gravity Waves, and confirmation that Einstein was right all along, had me wondering how we could use nature (in this case the gravity waves) to inspire change in our own lives.

The biggest insight for me was that the observations made were from 1 billion years ago - ie way back in time.

Yesterday's blog considered going back in time to revisit our own personal big bangs with other people - to stand in the shoes of the other person in order to minimise the impact of the gravity waves today in our own lives.

Today I'd like to consider going back in time to choose an alternate reality!

Not because I think we should ignore what's happened to us, or turn the other cheek to unacceptable behaviour, but because often how we remember a past event is still impacting us today. Impacting us today - whether our memory of that event is accurate or not, and whether we've taken personal responsibility for our own contribution to the event or not. Impacting us today even though it happened years ago, and even though it's likely that the memory has deletions and distortions contained within it.

In other words

• We never speak up in meetings because we remember a time in the past when our boss embarrassed us when we did speak up.
• We don't apply for the job of our dreams because we remember a teacher telling us we were no good at x.
• We constantly allow others to bully us because we learnt fighting back didn't work, and it was easier to just accept it.
• And so on  

Remember our perceived reality is very unlikely to have happened the way we think it did, and yet we're still acting as if it's true - see an earlier Purchasing Coach blog there's 3 versions of a story - yours, theirs and the truth.

Just like the scientist who went back in time this week we too can go back in time. 

We however can change our interpretation of reality, and allow that new interpretation to impact us today instead of the old faulty and unhelpful interpretation!

To do that you need to go back in time to revisit the memory, replay the memory with new eyes, and bring the insight and learning up to the present day. (NB: We're not looking at a 7+/10 negative emotion memory - more of a 4/10 or less)) 

There's a few ways you can do this:

• Metaphorically using a landscape to represent your memory - follow the link to this blog and apply the process to your memory. This is the simplest and easiest means of making changes - and can be used for higher negative emotion memories than 4/10.  
• Imagine you're in a cinema watching yourself watch a movie of your life. Watch yourself rewind the movie till the start of the memory and then press play. Notice what you notice about the event? You rewind it again, and this time perhaps make changes to the film to make it reflect reality more - perhaps changing where the cameras are pointing, or changing the colours or main characters and so on. You may even rewind a little further to notice what else was going on before hand. Just act as your own producer and director and make amends so that the resulting movie reflects a more realistic, every day sort of memory. Once you're happy watch yourself watching the movie up until today, and then watch yourself get up from your seat, and step into the screen ready for the rest of the movie/life. (There's an amended version of this process for 5+/10 negatively charged memories)   
• Imagine your timeline on the floor - past/present/future, and then step off it, and go back in time to look down on the memory on your timeline, and notice what you notice about the memory, who was doing what and so on, and then step back into your timeline before the event happened, and replay the event, then step off the timeline again and walk up to the present day, and step back onto the timeline and into NOW. (Easier done with a someone talking you through the process).

The key is realising that how you'd been imagining the memory was flawed. and that it had been given more emphasis than it merited.

What alternate reality do you need to embrace so you can have the life you imagine, rather than the one distorted by the gravity waves of a mini big bang of your own making?
 
Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Using nature to inspire change inside and out

The source of our own personal gravity waves

The headline reads 'Einstein was right all along'!

I'm certainly in no position to comment, other than to say the excitement from the scientific community about the news today is catching.

That excitement had me wondering whether there was other ways we could use today's findings as a metaphor for our lives.

For the last 16 years I've used nature to inspire change inside and out - that is used nature as a metaphor for our lives - enabling us to see a current situation from a different perspective - to move from being stuck to getting back on track - whether that's by being able to see the wood for the trees, getting out of the rut, finding our paddle and getting out of the creek, or taking your head out of the sand.

In November I used a constructed image of 2 black holes colliding as a means of inviting you to weigh up two conflicting options you had about a given situation?

The part about today's news that intrigued me the most was we were able to see back in time 1 billion years. Which means it might just be possible (with even more sensitive and expensive equipment) to go back 13.8 billion years to the big bang, and to see the start of the universe!!

WOW - how scary and fantastic would that be.

Today I'd like to discuss how, just like the scientists, we too can travel back in time to:

• Discover the origins of the big bangs in our own lives

I'll cover a related subject tomorrow that involves going back in time to

• Live in an alternate, and yet more realistic, universe.  

Discover the origins of our own big bangs

How often do you see friends or colleagues who have fallen out with someone, and you don't quite understand how it happened. They tell you their version of events, and you can't quite see how that then leads to the emotion you're hearing them express. Or you hear the other person's point of view, and they might as well be talking about 2 separate events.

We’re doing this time and time again. That is, we only take in a small percentage of all the information available to us at any given moment, and yet believe our version of events to be true. The challenge is our beliefs, values and past experiences will have determined where we put our attention - and as I wrote over on The Purchasing Coach blog - there's three versions of any story - yours, theirs and the truth. 

We might, therefore, believe we understand the reason for you own big bang with someone, but the likelihood is we'll have missed something fundamental that might just enable the situation to be resolved.

The chances are you've already replayed the situation from your point of view many times - one tool that's very helpful is therefore to stand in the other persons shoes and replay the situation from their point of view. To go back and imagine the event happening, and try to focus on aspects of the event you missed the first time. 

Following the hypertext link for Standing in the shoes of the other person will take you to notes on the standard process for doing this. When doing it for an event you may want to amend it slightly to take more time to reply the event whilst standing in their shoes, and through their eyes observing your behaviour, language and reaction.

Standing in the shoes of the other person will always provide a different perspective and as a result provide more choices about what to do next to repair your big bang!

What big bangs continue to send gravity waves into your life - and when will you stand in the shoes of the other party to lessen the impact of those waves?

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Using nature to inspire change - inside and out

Let the Sunshine in!

"I have a core of me that's confident" said a client recently "but I'm not sure it's reached my head yet."

The clue of course lay in the language being used about a 'core' of confidence. That is my client had an internal representation for their confidence that was a 'core'. Since it had a description, and was only a construct anyway, playing around with the image of the 'core' might enable it to include, rather than exclude, their head?

The Skype call went something like this:

"How would you describe this core?"
"It's around my stomach"
"And what qualities does the core have?"
"It's like a sun"
"Can you tell me more about this sun?"
"It's yellow, and the beams spread out around my arms, legs and body but stop at my throat"
"What's stopping it from extending beyond your throat?"
"There's clouds in the way"
"What might enable the clouds to move?"

Which result in much hilarity as we "wooshed" and generally tried different strengths of wind to move the clouds away. Once the clouds were no longer in the way I asked:

"Can the sun now extend into your head"
"Yes a little - it certainly feels warmer"

We then 'played' around with the image until it felt just right, and the sun was streaming through into my client's head.

Just as we started speaking about 'the sun streaming' the actual sun here in Scotland (yes we do get some) started to stream in through my window, and my head on the screen had a halo around it - which helped us further enhance the image my client had for their core of confidence.

My final question was then "And how does your confidence feel now?"
"Much better" was the reply.

We then went on to discuss how they could keep the image of the streaming sun alive until it became the norm for representing their confidence.

Such a great example of why metaphors are so powerful when coaching others. That is they often bypass the barriers and resistance we have to change, and certainly provide a much less stressful and content free means of releasing unhelpful thoughts, habits or behaviours.

You can read about other Landscaping your Life case studies by following the links : Perfection, Business Strategy Development, Burning Bridges, Superman in the north pole of inaccessibility, Lava or Magma, and The Dark Hedges.

Do call if you're stuck, and would like help to explore a situation using the Landscaping Your Life processes (although other coaching tools can and are used too).

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Inspiring Change Inside and Out
+44 (0)7770 538159 alison@alisonsmith.eu

North Pole of Inaccessibility

I know at this time of year there's more interest in the North Pole where Santa lives, but I was intrigued when I heard about there being a North Pole of Inaccessibility. Not only that, there's also an expedition headed that way in February 2016 - for more see icewarrior's website.

The North Pole of Inaccessibility - what a great description. It describes a point that is remote due to its lack of proximity to any place of access - therefore making it the most difficult place to reach ie inaccessible (despite expeditions planning how to conquer it). It's a journey of over 1000 km (800 miles) to the loneliest place on the ice, and is about 450 km from the geographic North Pole.

I loved the description so much I wondered how I might use it, and the landscape is describes, when Landscaping Your Life (LYL) - a process that uses landscapes as metaphors for our lives.

There are many different processes in the LYL toolkit - one that comes to mind requires us to:

1. Envisage a landscape that depicts the current situation we're feeling stuck about,  
2. Envisage a landscape that depicts the desired outcome, (there is no right or wrong just what landscape comes to mind immediately, or intuitively)
3. Plot a course from one landscape to the other - ie what would you need to do to get from one to the other? Or another option is to identify what changes need to be made to the current landscape, and to imagine making those changes (warmer, colder, more colour, more greenery, more or less cloud or sun, louder or softer sounds etc). Either way we end up in a landscape that looks, feels and sounds different to the original stuck landscape.
4. Then, and only once steps 1-3 have been completed, consider what action is required to achieve your desired outcome in reality. That is you stay in the metaphor for as long as possible, and only think about the actual situation once you've explored the metaphor/landscape.

It may sound a little a lot weird, but it makes sense to your mind, and will enable links to be set up in your brain to bridge the gap between where you are, and what needs to happen to get where you want to be.

The only way to be sure about the efficacy of the process - is to try it for yourself. Coaching is available if you'd like some guidance the first time you use the process - see here for notes from a session to see how it worked with one client.

In this post I'd like to consider what happens if we choose the North Pole of Inaccessibility for either landscape when using the above process ie the landscape is used to describe either the current stuck state, or the desired outcome.

To do that think of a situation you'd like more clarity about, or want to feel more resourceful about, or that you currently feel stuck about. Notice how satisfied you feel about it on a scale of 0-10. Then decide whether the North Pole of Inaccessibility best describes your current situation, or the desired outcome. Don't worry about whether it logically makes sense, nor try to understand why the answer is what the answer is. Just go with what ever comes to mind - current or desired situation and then consider the following questions.

Desired outcome or goal 

Please note this post isn't about making something that feels like a 'walk in the park' into a 'North Pole of Inaccessibility' - please do stay in the park if that's the case.

That said I'm sure many goals can feel a little like we're trying to get to the North Pole of Inaccessibility - ie inaccessible and never achievable. It also explains why no progress is currently being made too - or at best it's slow progress. 

If you do feel stuck, and can relate to this metaphor then do read on. Remembering to stick with the metaphor for as long as possible - ie answer the questions from the perspective of your interpretation of the North Pole of Inaccessibility (keep logic out of it for now).

Questions to consider:

• Do others agree with you that it's inaccessible?
• Have others got there easily? If so it's not really that inaccessible - how did they achieve it?  
• Do you know without any doubt that there are no closer points of access?
• How can you make the journey easier - i.e. what resources do you need e.g. time, people, training, finance, equipment, maps, coach or guide and so on.
• What will you do when you get there?
• How long will you stay? 
• Where will you go when you get back? 
• Why do you want to go there - ie what's the benefit? 
• Does a different landscape, or description of the landscape best describes the situation

As ever notice what you notice, and take appropriate action that arises from that noticing.

I'm thinking the likely outcome of answering these questions is to either decide the desired outcome is better described by another landscape, or to know the outcome isn't as impossible as perhaps you were thinking it was. Although perhaps another option is to choose a different outcome having realised the current goal is superfluous to requirements?  

The process for developing well formed outcomes may help too - although I'd suggest you apply it to the real situation and not the North Pole. 

Current situation or state

If you're envisaging you're currently already at the North Pole of Inaccessibility then you may want to consider:

• You have already got here - so you have proved you do have the resources needed to get out, and there is a route out that you know.
• You've also proved you have the courage and determination needed to do anything.
• If it wasn't difficult to get here, then it's very unlikely to really be the North Pole of Inaccessibility - what happens if you change the landscape to truly reflect the current situation, or change the description of the landscape? 
• How can you make the return journey easier - i.e. what resources do you need e.g. time, people, training, finance, equipment, maps, coach or guide and so on.
• Is it inaccessible for you or for everyone? If just for you - how have others got away from here?
• Have you made it more inaccessible, and if so how can you make it more accessible?

Using metaphor to resolve issues in this way is very impactful. 

Other suggestions would be to make the saying absurd - the aim being to laugh out loud at the absurdity. This allows something to shift internally - allowing solutions to be found. What about considering:

• The North Pole of Accessibility
• The North Point of Inaccessibility
• The North Circle of Inaccessibility 
• The North Square of Inaccessibility or Accessibility
• The North Pole of Flexibility 
• The North Pole of Opportunity
• The North Pole of Solutions  
• The South Pole of Inaccessibility or Accessibility
• The West Pole
• The East Pole
• The Centre Pole 
• The Centre of the Earth Pole
• The Inaccessible Pole of the North
• The Accessible pole of the North
• and so on - just play with the words, and as you do the attachment and association to the less than helpful image will be released

Consider the original situation you wanted some insight on - how satisfied do you now feel about it 0-10, and what action can you take today towards achieving that desired outcome/goal. 

If you're still unsure about how to do this then here's notes from a coaching session using this saying. 

I'd love to hear how you got on as you read this post - whether you were intentionally applying it to a situation or not.

If you're intrigued by how Landscaping You Life processes may be able to help your organisation, team or you personally do get in touch - alison@alisonsmith.eu +44 (0)7770 538159. Or keep an eye out for forthcoming events.

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Inspiring change inside and out

Superman in the North Pole of Inaccessibility

Whilst writing the North Pole of Inaccessibility post I had a coaching session with a client, and decided to try out the process described in the post with them.

With kind permission I share notes from the session here.

The process was:

• Think of a situation you'd like more clarity on and to feel less stuck about - how satisfied do you feel 0/10
• Consider whether the description 'the North Pole of Inaccessibility' best describes the current situation, or the desired outcome or goal (no logic - just intuitively what feels the most applicable answer)
• Put the situation to one side 
• Explore the metaphor/saying - perhaps answer the questions posed in the other post 
• Return to the original situation and notice how satisfied you now feel 0-10

Before sharing the journey we went on I'd like to say that as a result of doing this my client felt calmer, and was describing actions to resolve the situation in a more measured and less stressed way. Only time will tell what long term impact this had.

Please note the following may make no sense to you, nor me. The only person a metaphor needs to make sense to is the person using it. Notes here are therefore for illustration purposes only, and just provide a sense of how a session using one of the processes from the Landscaping Your Life toolkit works.

Here's what happened

• "The North Pole of Inaccessibility is where my dreams are" said my client
• "I can understand how it might be difficult to make plans of how to achieve your dreams if they're so inaccessible and difficult to achieve" I said 
• We then discussed why they were there, who put them there etc  
• "What landscape might best describe where you'd like to put your goals" I asked
• "An ice structure" they answered, and after a little more discussion "Like Superman has" 
• This resulted in a discussion about Superman and his ice structure. The location of Kryptonite then arose (for those who don't know it's poison to Superman, and makes him very weak).
• "The Kryptonite is in my back pocket!" they said
• "I can see why that would make your dreams inaccessible, and must be terribly hard work and draining" I said. This certainly was a great metaphor for their current health and well being, and also how they were feeling about their goals. 
• We then discussed ways that Superman would dispose of the Kryptonite - with help from Lois Lane, a lead lined box and deep water.
• I left my client with his dreams in an ice structure that he could easily access, and were he felt safe and invigorated - able to come and go from them at will.

Metaphors are like that - we find meaning in them that makes sense to us. (As another client found when they found their inner Picard). The true value then comes from using the metaphor to find a solution, and therefore shift our relationship to the original situation.

Shakespeare wrote "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so". That's what we're doing when we use metaphors in this way - we're changing an unhelpful way of thinking about a situation into a more helpful way of thinking about it. As we do this then the helpful thinking is more likely to support an ability to find solutions - and certainly changes the feelings to more resourceful ones.

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Inspiring Change Inside and Out
alison@alisonsmith.eu +44(0)7770 538159

Calm

Many of the antidotes used in Landscaping Your Life to help us get back on track involve changing the internal representation we have for a situation - here I'm wondering if the solution will be found by only using one colour in that representation?

To explore this further:

• Pick a situation you'd like more insight on - perhaps one that's making you quite agitated or anxious
• Notice how you're feeling, and on a scale of 1-10 identify how satisfied you are
• Think of a landscape that could represent the situation (don't worry about understanding the logic, just go with the first landscape that comes to mind).
• Change the landscape to one similarly coloured to the picture above
• Has the feeling associated with the landscape changed? 
• Has the level of satisfaction increased or reduced?
• What changes may you want to make to the colouring - different colour,  more colours, better focus or less and so on 
• Once you've made any final tweaks spend some time imagining the resulting image
• Think of the original situation - how satisfied do you now feel about situation 
• What action may you wish to take to help resolve this situation?        

I'd love to hear what you discovered as a result of following this process. 

In November I wrote an index ofLandscaping Your Life posts introducing the different ways I've used nature over the last 15 year to find solutions to life's challenges. If you're wondering why metaphors are such a great way of finding solutions you may also want to read this blog too. 

Progress

A quick Landscaping Your life post today:

• Think of a situation you'd like more clarity on 
• Describe the landscapes - above and below 
• Identify how the landscapes might provide an antidote to that situation.

You'd be better off coming up with your own answers but I will provide some suggestions further down the post.

Insights from this landscape may include one of the following:

• Movement may not be easily observed but it is never the less being made
• Climbing the rock face will require the right equipment - be prepared
• You need to cool down the situation 
• The situation is currently too icy
• Is swimming easier than climbing?
• Or perhaps climbing is easier than swimming
• Once the wind takes the mist away it's easier to see the situation
• Or perhaps more mist is needed
• Once the ice gets to the water it starts to break up 
• Even icy water will melt the iceberg

Then consider how these might be applied to your current situation - perhaps you need to:

• Have more patience
• Look for the subtle signs that progress is being made
• Prepare well
• Look for an alternate strategy to the one you're considering
• Remember the right time to make progress may be in-front of you not behind you
• Concentrate on one aspect of the situation only
• Match the icy reception with slightly warmer and yet still icy response

I would welcome your suggestions, thoughts and comments.

Alison Smith

Landscaping Your Life

Inspiring change inside and out

Lava or magma?

Landscaping Your Life (LYL) can be used for many different sorts of situations:

• Vision setting
• Strategy development
• Stakeholder engagement 
• Problem solving
• Barrier or hurdle busting 
• Comfort zone expanding
• Confidence building 
• Stress reducing
• Fitness improving 
• and so on

That is LYL work's for any and all situations where there's a component of your mind that's contributing to the current situation. For example when you're confused, angry, unsure, fearful or negative your mind is contributing to how you're feeling, thinking and acting. As a result your mind can be used to change how you're feeling.

The underlying premise with Landscaping Your Life is using a metaphor that describes how the mind is representing the current situation, ie a landscape in nature, and then use that to solve the problem. 

The objective therefore is to: 

1. Identify a representation (Landscape) for the current situation 
2. Identify a representation (Landscape) for the desired outcome 
3. Find a way of focusing your mind's attention on the desired landscape more than the current situation.

All the different LYL tools and techniques just use different ways of undertaking these 3 activities.

There are many reasons why this works -  not least that using metaphor makes it more likely we can bypass the resistance we currently have to finding a solution.  

One such occasion involved someone describing the current situation as lava that had hardened. The antidote was imagining magma. Each of us, even if we had the identical landscapes, would find different ways of moving from the first to the second landscape and might include:

• Spending more time focussing on the desired landscape - in your mind, by watching a video, or even visiting molten lava (some landscapes are easier to visit than others). 
• Simply imagining moving from one landscape to the other - there are a variety of ways of doing this - I've pulled a Pinterest board together to help identify the different means of moving around a landscape (although not this specific landscape) - the building bridges blog also explores this quite well.
• Imagining you're  heating up the hardened lava - there will be a variety of ways of doing this too
• An earthquake that takes the lava back into the earth (this is the option a client chose)

What landscape would best describe your current situation, and how can you change it to become more resourceful?  

Alison Smith

Landscaping Your Life

Inspiring change inside and out 

When black holes collide

Why not think of 2 contradictory options you have for a situation and use this video to find a solution.

To do that:

• Think of a challenge you'd like a different perspective on - perhaps one with a couple of options or very opposing options
• Put the challenge to the back of your mind *
• Watch this short video - you may want to do so a few times - with or without the sound
• Distract yourself for a few hours
• Think about the original situation and notice what you notice
• Let me know how you get on 

* Putting the situation to the back of your mind means not thinking about it - not trying to decide which option is which black hole, or anything else related to the situation. It's about putting it to one side, and coming back to it later and allowing your unconscious to find the solution for you.

See yesterday's blog for an index of Landscaping Your Life posts introducing the different ways I've used nature over the last 15 year to find solutions to life's challenges. If you're wondering why metaphors are such a great way of finding solutions you may also want to read this blog too. 

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Inspiring change inside and out

El Nino may be the perfect answer

When using landscapes to metaphorically represent challenging situations in their lives clients often describe deserts. It's certainly easy to understand why when desert's are generally hot, dry, empty and perhaps lonely places to be, and could also be thought of as difficult places to be inspired by and survive in.

The landscaping your life process involves imagining making changes to the original landscape so that it reflects the outcome you'd like rather than currently have. The solution landscape may be the original landscape with changes made to it, or may involve imagining going on a journey to a new landscape.

I remember one solution involved imagining the desert was at a different latitude enabling rain to sustain the desert, and allowing it to flourish once more.

Recent pictures of the Chilean desert with flowers growing due to the recent impact of El Nino made me realise I need to ask another question of clients - "would adding El Niño to the landscape make a difference?" smile emotic

Coaching and group facilitation using the landscaping your life process is available to provide insight into many of life's, and work's challenges - do email me alison@alisonsmith.eu or call 07770 538159 to find out more.

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Inspiring change inside and out

Speaking with confidence

Over the years I've used many different techniques to support clients in building their confidence whether that's speaking or more generally at work. 

One of the more regular contributors to lack of confidence when speaking, however, is what's going on in your head. That is the internal picture you're seeing, or story you're telling yourself, as you prepare to speak and then attempt to speak. 

Imagine for a moment the following landscape (or another that you personally don't like):

Imagine you're there and notice what you notice about how you feel? What's happening in your mind? What about your body? 

Now consider speaking as you hold this image in your mind. How confident do you feel? How easy is it to consider success, achievement and connection to the audience? How easy is to imagine what you want to say. 

For many this picture represents the little voice inside that's saying "you can't do it" "you're not important" "no-one will listen" as your energy plummets and your fight of flight mechanism kicks in, and shuts off access to the part of your mind that knew what to say. 

Now imagine this landscape (or one of a favourite landscape) 

What difference do you notice? How do you feel? What about your body? As you imagine speaking with this image in your mind what happens to your confidence? What happens to your expectation of success? Connection with others?

This image represents the internal cheerleader, the voice that says "go for it" "you can do it" "woooooop" and allows your energy to soar and words to appear effortlessly to convey concisely, and inspirationally, your message. 

The only thing we changed between the two experiences was the picture. I suspect many who have problems with speaking have an image similar to the first in their mind. The key therefore is ensuring the picture in your mind is one that lifts and inspires you, and the negative chatter can't help but be silenced. 

Next time you're in need of more confidence - consider the landscape that you're imagining to represent the situation and change it for a more resourceful one.

NB: You may want to trial a number of different landscapes ahead of time until you find the one that's just right for you. it might also be context specific. With a conversation with your boss needing a different landscape to one for when you're standing up and speaking to a room full of people.

Do let me know how you get on, or call me if you'd like some help +44 (0)7770 538159.

Alison Smith

Landscaping Your life

Inspiring change inside and out

The Dark Hedges

The Dark Hedges in Northern Ireland have made it through to the short list for #treeoftheyear. I hope since they've become part of the Game of Thrones history that they're better signposted than when we visited a number of years ago. 

I wondered as I looked at the pictures on Twitter how the hedges could be used for Landscaping your life (LYL). 

LYL is a process that uses landscapes and nature as a metaphor for our lives. Along the lines of being as grounded as a tree, going with the flow like a river, as deep as the ocean, as changeable as the weather and so on. 

There are a number of different ways LYL can be used to help you get out of a rut and back on track, or help you to see the wood for the trees etc.

Let's see what how the Dark Hedges might be of assistance.

First think of a situation you'd like more clarity on - you may be stuck or simply want to get on track quicker or more easily, or you may not quite know which direction you want to go. What ever the situation bring it to mind and get a sense of what level of clarity and satisfaction you currently have for it.

Now put the situation to the back of your mind and join me as we explore the landscape. We'll come back to the real life situation later once we've allowed nature to provide us with some insight. 

As you look at the picture of the Dark Hedges what come to mind? For example you may notice:

• The straight road up the middle
• The crooked branches
• The connected branches 
• The green leaves
• The grey bark

If you imagine this image representing the current situation what do you notice? Has it improved your ability to understand the solution that's needed? Does the image feel more or less satisfactory or clear?  

If it's feeling more satisfactory already you may want to see if any of the following suggestions increase your level of satisfaction, or simply return now to the original situation and notice what you notice. 

If nothing has changed, or perhaps satisfaction has reduced, consider what changes you might want to make to the image. These might include (and feel free to try each of the suggestions as you read through the list)

• Adding more or less colour or even making back and white
• Changing the size of the image
• Changing the location of the image 
• Zooming in or out 
• Making it more or less focused
• Making it into a movie so you can explore the landscape more fully
• Adding sounds
• Changing the weather
• Changing the time of day
• Changing the type of tree
• Adding or taking away trees
• Making the road longer or shorter
• Making the road more bendy

In other words keep changing the image until satisfaction with the image has increased, and stop once satisfaction has peaked. 

Don't worry if this feel strange - especially if you can't make sense of why making these changes can change your level of satisfaction. Basically your mind is able to make the connection and is doing all the hard work for you. 

Relax and continue to explore the image knowing that as you do so different connections in your brain are being made that will enable you to view the original situation differently.

How satisfied with the image do you now feel? 

If you're still not feeling any more satisfied you may want to imagine moving around the landscape - either by walking or even flying (as a bird or bee) or even using a mini camera drone. 

Or perhaps you need to imagine travelling into a completely different landscape? 

Just keep making changes until clarity and satisfaction have improved.

Now return to thinking about the original situation - notice what you notice? What is clearer now, and perhaps more importantly what actions can you now take to move forward?

I'd love to hear how you get on with this - it's always harder to explain how to do it remotely like this - much easier in person as we walk through a landscape. 

Perhaps that's my next task to do a video blog demonstrating it in practice. (I will add a link here once I've done that). 

Although there's plenty of other LYL video blogs using nature to get insight about life on my LYL YouTube channel. There's more on Facebook and Pinterest too.

Do get in touch if you're interested in knowing more about individual or group coaching and facilitation using this process, or other innovative tools that enable you or your team to be more inspired and get back on track alison@alisonsmith.eu +44 (0)7770 538159 

Insightful walk in nature

Yesterday I shared on the Purchasing Coach blog my realisation that more time outside in nature was needed to support my well being and creativity. I set out to rectify that when the day started with such a beautiful blue sky and aimed for the top of the hill behind my house (shown above).

What I hadn't expected was that the landscaping your life process I use in coaching session with clients would hijack the walk. The process uses nature as our teacher and many of the insights have been shared on YouTube. 

One technique is to identify a situation you'd like more clarity on and then go for a walk and notice what you notice. In this instance I hadn't identified a situation but after 9 months as an interim category manager I was reflecting on 'what next'. Here's what I noticed...

• You will see glimpses of light before you get where you're going (this was very welcome after 20 minutes of climbing and repeatedly thinking I was near the top when I wasn't!).

• Flies flock together around sh!t (not sure there's much to say about this but it was a very clear insight at the time).

• Seagulls will wait close at hand, and in anticipation, for the Farmer to continue ploughing the field.

• Even if it looks far away it's nearer than you think with social media (I tweeted this picture of the forth bridges (in the distance) to @forthroadbridge and they replied).

• You can really see more of a situation when you step back and review it from a different perspective (this was the view of Burntisland, the Forth river and Edinburgh in the distance).

• The best route isn't always the most well trodden - the left hand path was very much the safest option (on the way up I'd experienced a path that at times was lost to the encroaching cliff edge and at very acute angle - the left hand path led to a field)  

I don't yet completely understand how these all relate to "what next?" - something about seeing the bigger picture, connecting with those further afield, not following the pack and being patient! Would love your take on these observations, and do let me know the outcome of your #landscapingyourlife walk(s).  

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Inspiring change inside and out

Connecting with your audience

We’ve all been there. We’ve sat and listened to someone speak and wished they hadn’t bothered.

Yet we meet them afterwards and wonder who the person was on the stage? The person in front of us is animated, interesting, we believe every word, can engage with what they’re saying and want to know more. We even consider inviting them to speak at a conference until we remember the catastrophe on the stage.

I want to explore something that often comes as a surprise to fellow speakers when I give them feedback and that’s how we use our energy.

I don’t mean energy levels that are addressed through appropriate diet, exercise and sleep. I mean the type of energy we can feel when we walk in the room and can tell it’s a place we want to be or not, or the type of energy that we feel when someone is passionate about what they’re saying. What we do with our energy when speaking has an impact on us, our audience and our message in the same way.

The problem is people often provide more logical and rational reasons for their feedback on our keynote and it often ignores what I believe to be one of the major blocks for many speakers. Feedback is getting closer when we hear:

• It’s not coming from your heart
• You’re in your head too much
• You didn’t connect with the audience
• You didn’t connect with the message
• It just wasn’t you up there
• You looked like a headless chicken
• You were talking AT not TO me

These all arise because of what we’re doing with our energy and our energy is impacted by what’s happening inside us. For example we might be imagining our message is a bullet and the audience feel this as being shot at, or we might have a metaphorical wall around us and the audience experiences this as aloofness or even arrogance. Being aware of the internal representation(s) we have when we’re speaking and ensuring they support our objectives is essential.

Here are a few tips on how to recognise when you might need to take action and some examples of internal representations you might consider:

Grounding

• You know you’ve lost it when: You feel tense and are pacing up and down and can’t stop moving.
• Others know you’ve lost it when: They start to feel agitated and distracted.
• You know you’ve got it when: You feel as if you have all the time in the world.
• Others know you’ve got it when: They are calm and feel the power of your words.
• Internal representation/metaphor to consider: Anything that grounds you – often from the feet e.g. roots, heavy boots (not wearing them - unless they match your outfit - just imagining you've got them on), anchor etc.

Connection

• You know you’ve lost it when: You feel isolated from the audience and may even start to panic.
• Others know you’ve lost it when: They start talking to each other and are not paying attention to you.
• You know you’ve got it when: You feel like you’re talking to your friends.
• Others know you’ve got it when: They feel included in a discussion with you.
• Internal representation/metaphor to consider: Anything that provides a connection with the audience - often from the heart e.g. tracks, golden chains etc.

Communication

• You know you’ve lost it when: You can’t remember what you are going to say next.
• Others know you’ve lost it when: They feel confused and don’t understand what you’re saying.
• You know you’ve got it when: You find the right words easily and effortlessly.
• Others know you’ve got it when: They can’t wait to hear what you have to say next.
• Internal representation/metaphor to consider: Anything that offers and delivers the message – often from the head e.g. light, flowing water etc

You may notice in the examples given that the picture for communication is also very grounding, or that the grounding picture relates to connection. Often once we find and embody the right metaphor grounding, connection AND communication can take place. 


What’s your metaphor and does it work for or against your success?

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your life
Inspiring change inside and out



Pictures copyright my brother :-) Andrew Jones Photography

PS: Do please get in touch if you'd like a coaching session providing energetic feedback on your leadership or speaking. It's likely to explore aspects you've not covered before and could be what's holding you back from truly connecting with others alison@alisonsmith.eu +44 (0)7770 538159