Getting back on track

I thought it was time to apply the Landscaping Your Life (LYL) process to the saying "getting back on track."

If getting back on track is something you're grappling with at this time you may find that this post takes you on a journey from off to on track.

If getting back on track is not something that resonates I'd suggest reading another post. It's a little like reading a fabulous new recipe - more helpful when you're just about to bake it than ahead of time when it just whets the appetite but leaves you feeling a little unsatisfied. Or even worse, leaves you critical of the process because you have no idea why they put the eggs in before the butter, even though if you were making the cake it would be very obvious and make complete sense.

Best to read it when you need it, and it will make much more sense.

Background to the process
The title of my recently published first book is Can't see the wood for the trees, landscaping your life to get back on track.

The basic assumption of the book is that the words we're using also contain the answer. Which means if we can't see the wood for the trees the trees - real green living trees - would have the answer. Which might require you to consider grounding yourself like the roots in this picture, or noticing the cut wood and realise you need to cut some of the noise out of the situation.

You'll find more about an example when you can't see the wood for the trees here.

Before you read any further, think about the situation you're wanting more clarity about - how satisfied do you feel on a scale of 0-10 (Where 0 is stuck and dissatisfied, and 10 is in the flow, on track, moving forward and satisfied).

As with all LYL explorations the aim is to now put the real life situation to the back of your mind, and explore the landscape to find a range of options. Once we've got a list of options from the landscape then we can consider what it means in reality.

Getting back on Track

The first thing to consider when getting back on track is how we relate to the saying. 

Where are we currently, and where do we want to get to.

I don't mean the content of the situation. 

I'll say that again, NOT the content of the situation. 

I mean, what's the saying that best describes the current situation.

As in, explore every word to see if it accurately describes the current situation: 

If you're not 'on' track what are you? 

• Off track
• Off your track
• Off someone else's track
• On someone else's track
• Off the track
• Off a track 
• Way off any track
• Just off track
• Across the track 
• Not on track 
• Up the wrong track 
• Down the wrong track
• Off the right track
• Off the left track 
• Going round in circles on any track
• Unable to see the track 

Play with the words - because understanding how you currently relate to the situation will determine where you'll find a solution - one may already have popped up?  

   

Perhaps 'track' isn't the right word

• Off the rut
• In a rut
• Off the road
• Off the footpath
• Off the limb 

Keep going - be playful - you never know just playing with the words may loosen your current inability to find a solution. The aim is to keep using the process until you've connected to the part of you that does know what to do, because, there is one, and it does know.

What's your outcome? I've assumed it's 'getting back on track' but that may also need to change. 

Your answer will depend on how you described the current situation ie what changes you made in the above exploration. Your outcome might be:

• To get on track 
• To get on your track
• To get on a track
• To get on the track
• To have no track
• To find a track
• To find a beautiful track 
• To intuit a track 
• To flow on track (That's given me goosebumps - wow I do love this process - did you find one that did that for you?) 
• To leave any and all tracks behind  

Do you get a sense that the words you're using impact how you feel about the situation?

And we haven't even touched on some of the juicier processes outlined in the book.  

Once you've got words that accurately describe the current and desired situation then it's about asking how, in nature, would you get from one to the other.

Don't start to try to understand how it relates to the real life situation yet - stick with the metaphor - stick with the landscape - its only by doing this we allow our inner knowing to nudge us in the right direction. 

Let's assume I'm currently 'off my track', and want to 'flow in my track'. I now need to identify the steps I could take to make that a reality. 

• I need to find my track - which leads me to wonder is it lost? misty? not yet found? hidden? overgrown? mistaken with other people's paths? strangled by other's tracks?
• I might therefore need to make it less difficult to find - blow the mist away perhaps, blow up other's tracks.
• Get from where I am to that track - walk? run? roll? swim? fly? 
• Then start flowing

This does not need to make any sense to anyone but me - it's now very much become my metaphor and landscape. As your own exploration will have.  

It may be that at this point we notice we're moved along the satisfaction scale and options of what we need to do have appeared. 

If not we simply need to translate the action plan in nature into reality. Which might look like:

• Re-identify my vision (no musts, oughts and shoulds from others)
• Not to call them steps along the way but strokes (as someone with arthritis in both my knees, and being an enthusiastic open water swimmer, this feels much easier and less stressful which would certainly make it easier to hear the part of me that does know what to do)  
• Develop a 2018/19 plan for how I will make that vision a reality - I did start to type a 'daily reality' and now wonder whether it's more a 'tidal reality'. Hmm ... will need to let you know if that's me trying to be too clever with the metaphor or if it makes sense.    

Notice if you've been doing this for yourself what level is your satisfaction now? What actions have you committed to take - when will you take them?

Words have power.

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Using the patterns in nature to solve unhelpful patterns in life

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

Patterns

We can see patterns everywhere we look in nature whether in plants and trees,

weather patterns,

water and so on.

We often forget that there's also patterns in our own behaviour - some supportive and others less so.

When coaching I'm often looking for patterns. Patterns that support clients to achieve their goals, and/or patterns that set them back.

• Patterns may be fairly clear to see: watching TV, or using the pc, until after midnight every night and then struggling to get up in a morning, and not having as much energy as you'd like throughout the day.
• Patterns may be hidden: the tone and words used of the small voice within that repeatedly talks us out of action. 
• Patterns may be totally unconscious: only really observable over time when we realise we ALWAYS - give up too soon, back off from conflict, eat too much when stressed, play it safe, avoid the unknown and so on. 

No pattern is inherently good or bad. The clue is in the outcome that the pattern delivers. If it's not an outcome what you want, and you can understand the pattern that triggers the response, you simply have to change the pattern. (OK perhaps not always simple but understanding the unresourceful pattern is certainly a major step towards success.)

That's what much of the work I do as a coach, facilitator, consultant and problem solver is about. Helping clients discover the patterns to release, and those to embrace, that will help them achieve their goals. 

What patterns are you running, and how might they be helping or hindering you from achieving your goals? 

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

Why use Metaphors

I often get asked why I use metaphors when helping others get back on track - here's my response.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes the more you talk about a problem the more confused you become. Additionally that the more people that are involved, the more barriers and resistance to hearing different ideas there are, and how much further away the solution becomes?

The challenge when we have any problem is we get stuck in the content - the detail - and since it's the detail that we're stuck with - it's not a surprise that sometimes it's the detail that keeps us stuck.

For example how easy to get caught up in:

• He said this 
• Then she said that
• and how dare she 
• And then you never guess what happened
• How rude

and before you know it 

• I'm never speaking to them again
• Unless they apologise then xxxx!?!
• I'm just going to do what I wanted to do in the first place - stuff them! 
• I'm just going to ignore it

Or you ask someone to tell you about the challenge, and 3 hours later you're still there. As they fill you with every detail they think you need to hear - so you can see it the same way as they do anyway!

Other often used phrases in response to solution finding can include:

• We've always done it like this
• If it aint broke don't fix it
• We tried that before, and it didn't work then
• But what will I do then 
• I like doing it this way 
• It won't work
• We're not going there 
• I don't want to talk about it
• I'm bored about talking about it
• No

Or other variants in the same vein that force you to defend your position and reinforcing your own point of view. Making it harder and harder to be able to stand back, get some perspective and find a solution.

The problem with trying to solve a challenge using the current logic is, therefore, that we get caught up in that logic and detail. Perhaps more importantly we strongly hold on to our judgements, beliefs and assessments about the situation, and believe them to be correct. Which means alternatives are not so easy to identify, and consensus is hard to achieve.

If a picture paints a thousand words then I like to say that a metaphor paints a thousand pictures. This may or may not be completely nor scientifically accurate but what I hope it does convey - is the richness of metaphors - and all without having to use thousands of thousands of words to describe a situation.

Try it for a moment - what do you think supplier management in organisations involves? Or put another way - once you've placed an order with a supplier how much attention do you give the supplier?

If the many procurement horror stories are anything to go by - or conversations I have on flights - then orders are placed and suppliers just expected to deliver. Until there's a problem of course!

I use gardening as a metaphor for supplier management because by doing so we can use everything non purchasing managers know about gardening, and apply it to purchasing (that's where painting a thousand pictures comes in). Which means suddenly they start realising that suppliers need pruning, weeding, mowing, watering, dead heading, composting and sometimes some time in the greenhouse!  It opens up a whole new conversation about:

• How many suppliers are like that tree whose roots are undermining the foundations of the house
• What to do with weed like suppliers who pop up everywhere 
• Who is in charge of the tool shed, and keeping the tools sharpened
• Who's the gardener and who do they report to
• What's the objective for the garden
• What soil do you have
• What type of plants thrive in this environment
• How many plants do you want 
• Do you want all year round colour, or just summer colour
• Whether to have a compost heap, and if so when to spread it about
• and so on. 

Can you get a sense that saying "purchasing is like gardening" has opened up the conversation in a way that talking about procurement theory might not have done (more here too). Especially with non procurement managers in the business - who I'm assuming don't live and breathe purchasing like I have for 30 years (see the procurement coach for more on that)!

Landscaping Your Life - is a process I've used for 15 years - and uses nature as a metaphor for our lives. That is we're using the richness that is contained within nature to provide insight into how we might want to relate differently to a situation we're struggling with.

These images may help convey it a little better. For example if we decided the solution to a problem was to be more bear or eagle like - those few words are conveying so much more....

Yes metaphors are in the eye of the beholder. Our minds are also meaning making machines, and therefore they are very good at noticing the pattern within a metaphor that does apply, and ignoring everything that doesn't. So using the bear and eagle as a metaphor could have brought to mind the viscous aspects of their nature - but it didn't. However it might have done when asked to apply it to a different situation, that perhaps did require more self preservation like behaviours.

There is no right or wrong with metaphors - all they do is open up a conversation so that the current situation, barriers to change, options, opportunities and the desired outcome are seen from a different perspective. This enables solutions to be found regarding what action to take, in order for progress to be made.

Tomorrow marks my 53rd birthday, and I decided it was a great day to relaunch Landscaping Your Life. I've started by pulling together all the blogs I've written on the subject. Imagine my surprise, with only a couple of new additions, that the number of blogs was 53!! Tomorrow I'll be posting the index of the blogs I've written. These posts show case the different ways I use landscapes as metaphors to find solutions to life's challenges for personal and business clients.

I do hope you'll join and engage with me over the coming weeks and months as I share more about this wonderfully insightful, enjoyable and non threatening process.

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Using Nature to Inspire 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

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

Perfection

This post has moved to my new website.

Making Mountains out of Molehills

When I'm working with clients to overcome their challenges and get back into flow it's useful to listen to the language they use. That is the words used often give a clue to the internal representation they have about the situation, and these words will be impacting the beliefs they have about their ability to solve the situation and/or get out of it.

Over recent blogs I've shared ways of tackling beliefs such as no pain no gain, burying your head in the sand, being in a rut, and not wanting to burn bridges. It may sound odd but having these beliefs can stop you achieving your goals. Of course it would: 

• if you believe there's no gain without pain you'll constantly search for more and more pain
• if you believe you're in a rut then there's very little you can do until you're out of it 
• if you don't want to burn your bridges you will take no action for fear of doing so
• if you believe that things will get better whilst you keep your head down you'll take no action

The common theme is these beliefs keep you stuck, immobile and taking no action. It's the same when we're making mountains out of molehills. The belief that its a mountain seems far too big a task to accomplish and insurmountable and so we take no action.

There would be various ways of assisting someone to look at this situation differently. Finding an actual molehill might be helpful for some - and definitely not for others. 

As I searched for a photo for this blog I wondered how the situation might be different if we identified with the mole in the picture creating the molehill. Since it's impossible for a mole to create a molehill the size of a mountain the molehill can only be so big (ie small). Which presupposes it's something we can easily get over, around, flatten out and/or cope with.

Once you are able to change the belief that's holding you back then action is possible and solutions can be found.  
    
Next time you think you might be making a mountain out of a molehill just remember - you are the mole that created it - and notice what you notice.

Alison Smith
Landscaping your Life
Inspiring change inside and out

I'm stuck in a rut

The language we use often provides a gateway into our mind. That is it explains how we've internally represented a situation. Previous blogs have explored phrases we use such as no pain no gain, burning bridges and burying our head in the sand. Yesterday I read a blog that referred to being 'stuck in a rut'. I'd like to share in this blog one of the very simple techniques in the landscaping your life toolkit and apply it to this phrase.

This technique assumes that saying "I'm stuck in a rut" is describing your internal representation of the current situation. Which means if you can change how you're representing it in your mind you may be able to find solutions that currently are hidden from you. 

To change the internal representation is really very easy: 

1. Find a rut, 
2. Stand in the rut 
3. Step out of the rut
4. Notice what you notice about the situation.
5. Be surprised with that you discover.

There's a video blog on this I did some time ago if you'd like to see it in practice.

Next time you find yourself in a rut remember it might be much easier than you think to get out of it.

Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Inspiring change inside and out

I don't want to burn any bridges

"I don't want to burn my bridges" a client said in a coaching session. They were resisting taking their business to the next level and the coaching session's aim was to identify the reason for the resistance and if possible to let it go. This comment was made as we explored the reason for the resistance.

The language we use provides so much more information about what's going on inside. Exploring the meaning of the language, therefore, will then help us make shifts within. Which in turn allows us to take different actions on the outside. After all, if it was easy we'd have taken the necessary action by now and never have any problems. Something is stopping us from doing what we say we want to do. Since no other person is stopping us from making a different choice the only culprit is ourself and our mind. And the language we use is one way we have of understanding what is really going on in our mind.

Here's how the Landscaping Your Life process worked in this situation and, perhaps the best way of explaining it, helped the mind see the error in it's logic. 

Talk of burning bridges led to a discussion about building bridges and crossing bridges. Which led to a realisation that the situation felt like that depicted below:

Except there was no leaping required just a bridge that they were afraid would burn. As they envisaged crossing from the side they were on to the side they wanted to be, the bridge kept getting longer. No wonder if felt like a relentless and fruitless exercise. I can't envisage what it must have been like to be on the bridge expecting it to burn any minute! Feeling like the situation was like this certainly explained much of their behaviour they'd explained was taking place. 

After checking that the other side of the gap was where they wanted to be, we explored the different ways of getting over the gap. At the time we were standing at the top of a hill behind Burntisland looking across the Forth river to Edinburgh so we used that gap as the metaphor for the current situation. We could see the Forth rail and road bridges as potential options. In addition to building another bridge (and they're even doing that at the moment) other options to get to the other side included: sailing, swimming, canoeing, jet skiing, hovercrafting, submarine (which isn't as unlikely as it seems here), lilo, paragliding, plane and zip wire.     

As we explored each of these it became apparent that the zip wire was the preferred route as "it's quick and I don't have an option to change my mind." So we spent some time there on the top of the hill envisaging safely taking a zip wire across to Edinburgh and noticing how if felt once they got there.

As we walked back down the hill later on my client seemed much less worried about burning bridges and was starting to identify strategies of how to take their business to the next level. From the language used I'd suggest the resistance had been reduced or even released.

For those used to talking through problems this process may seem very alien. One reason it works is because we don't get caught up with the content of the problem. We don't allow "she said this, then he said that and then you'll never guess what happened next" to get in the way of observing what's really going on. To see the patterns and metaphors that explain the underling situation and also provide potential solutions and options available.

If you're metaphorically burning, building or crossing bridges today you may just want to think about what that really means. 

Alison Smith

Landscaping Your Life
Inspiring change inside and out