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

Toxic leadership

Earlier this week I wrote about toxic leadership over on my more logical purchasing coach site.

The challenge around using the term 'toxic' is everyone can identify others who are toxic, and no one self identifies themselves as toxic. In the following blog 'is your head in the sand' I encouraged everyone to explore the hidden and unknown character traits that, even if not toxic, might be negatively impacting others in their life.

I then got to wondering - if metaphor is such a powerful tool - what would happen if we explored toxic leadership in terms of toxicity in nature. 

If you're unclear of the hows and whys of metaphors you might want to first read my blog on the topic. 

I'm not a professional environmentalist nor botanist, so just a reminder it's only going to be my personal observations about what we could learn from toxic plants. Who knows, there may be some nuggets in here.

I'm struck by the fact that there's two types of toxicity in nature - the natural, and the man made. I suspect we'll find insight in both. In this post I'm going to concentrate on natural toxins. 

Here's my observations about toxic plants (we'll draw analogies later - it's always best to stick with the metaphor for as long as possible) :

• The first question to ask is toxic to whom or what? For example what's toxic to humans may not be to birds, in the same way that certain plants are toxic to our cats and dogs, but not to us.
• Toxicity also comes as a continuum - with some plants simply causing mild irritation, and other's death. Or some only causing a reaction after contact with, or ingestion of, a large quantity of the plant. 
• Toxicity may also only be of certain parts of a plant - for example we can eat a rhubarb's stem but not their leaves.
• Many toxic plants are very colourful as if warning others of their potential for harm, or on contact or ingestion provide advance warning that further contact might not be advisable. 
• Toxic plants are predominately toxic to protect themselves. As they couldn't run away they had to come up with a strategy to stop animals eating them.
• Apparently toxicity can increase due to location, age and other environmental factors! 
• Toxicity can also reduce over time, with repeated contact or ingestion.
• Some plants are toxic until cooked after which they're harmless.
• Some toxic plants have an antidote near by - think nettles and dock leaves.
• Many toxins are the basis for medicines - conventional or alternative.

What conclusions does that mean I think we can make - still keeping with the metaphor ish:

• Toxic plants need to be reminded that the environment in which they're operating in means there's now an increasing number of people negatively impacted - perhaps inviting them to tone back their toxicity or warn others before ingestion.
• Toxic plants should be congratulated on succeeding at finding ways to personally stay alive - the key here has to be to expand the number of plants they're taking responsibility for and are wanting to survive. For them to notice that it's not just personal survival that's important, even the air and water they rely on needs to be sustained over the long term.
• Toxic plants are a problem when planted in the wrong environment - they don't suddenly become toxic - they are toxic when in known conditions, and in a response to known stimuli. The criteria for selection of plants needs to include checking for toxicity. 
• Putting toxic plants under pressure (ie cooking them) can reduce their toxicity - we just need to know the type of stress that reduces toxicity rather than increases it. 
• In the right environment a toxic plant causes no harm to others, and may even be of medical use.
• Not quite accurate, due to the length of time needed to let go of the toxic DNA, but if the toxic plant doesn't feel threatened it may not need its toxicity.
• Ensure others around the plant are available to reduce the impact. 
• Be very clear on the reason and benefits to be generated by planting a toxic plant - Ie undertake a risk/cost/benefit analysis.
• Don't keep touching or eating a toxic plant if you've had an adverse reaction to them in the past - leave them be - walk away and work in another garden. 

Nothing too profound although it's as if it's taken the sting out of my views of toxic leaders. Instead of feeling irritated and angry by them, I just feel like I need to put my protective gloves on, and handle them with a little more care. 

Did you notice anything as you read the post? Do please share your personal insights in comments below.

The beauty about metaphors is they're very personal - someone who's spent time in hospital due to eating a toxic plant would view the metaphor differently than someone who's just seen its toxic impact on others. The aim is to move how you're relating to the situation at the current time (Ie negatively or unable to see solutions or options) to something different, a 'different' that includes the possibility of positive change. 

Remembering of course that we can't change other people, only change our reaction to them, even if that in turn inspires a change in behaviour from them. 

Alison Smith

Landscaping Your Life

Using nature to inspire change inside and out 

Follow hypertext links to other blogs I've written on the subject highlighted.