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5 Random Thoughts on Change

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Change

 

  1. Change, like any creation, starts with a thought. For example, first you think what a great idea it would be to get married, you envision a wedding ceremony complete with wedding dress, cake, champagne, a minister, rings, a bridegroom and guests, then you start planning it and making it happen. And on the day, your plan comes together:  you have a wonderful service, reception and a new spouse, just like you planned it.
  2. Change is messy. It can be uncomfortable while we struggle with uncomfortable thoughts, emotions and uncertainty, not to mention people pulling us in different directions. In many ways, change is like tidying a cupboard or workspace. First you pull all the stuff out, then you sort through the clutter, throwing out what you no longer need, organising the remainder and repacking the cleared and cleaned space.
  3. Whether you instigated the change or it was something imposed on you, there is an adjustment period where you experience elements of the grief  or change cycle: excitement, anger, denial, despair. It can catch you unawares, especially if it was a change you wanted.
  4. Change gives you an opportunity to view the world differently. You can go down the ‘poor little me’ road of Read more »

From Turf to Tuscany

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Derbyshire Dales

Derbyshire Dales

Well, even though it is only two weeks, it seems an age ago I posted a blog.

I have been away helping a friend at the Business 2012 show which was held at the O2 in Greenwich, London. I have not been there since it was known as the Millenium Dome and had politicians fretting amongst themselves about it. Now it is a grand parade of restaurants and entertainment venues, built in such a way that should the dome structure be taken down, the interior can remain standing, no alteration required. I still think the dome is a fantastic engineering feat. My friend, Caroline Ainslee, owner and director of Bubblz Maths, had a field day taking photos of all the angles, structures, lines, shapes, in fact EVERYTHING that shows maths in real life.

Business 2012 had its own challenges and many learning points. There have been enough hot air exchanged over that; no need to contribute here.

The following weekend it was off to Bolton, via Coventry and the Peak District. The route we chose took us straight through Ashbourne where my friend and erstwhile colleague T lives. So we phoned T en route to see what she was doing that day and proposed to take her out for lunch. This was a spur-of-the-moment impulse. And what a delight! It was a perfect day for lunch in the sunshine at the Izaak Walton hotel in Dovedale, cradled amongst the greenest of hills in a peaceful embrace of nature.

T and I come a long way. Many, many years ago, T, another friend J and I worked together at a radiological practice in Turffontein, one of the southern suburbs in Johannesburg, South Africa. T and J were both from England, had been Read more »

The Forgotten Skill

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Listening

Ah yes! You might have guessed it. I am talking about ‘listening’. In fact, I’ll go further than saying listening is the forgotten skill and say it is a skill that most of us lack. We are never taught how to listen properly.

Hearing vs Listening: Hearing is a mechanical process. Sound reaches your eardrums as vibrations, travel through the middle and inner ear where it is converted to nerve impulses, then carried via the auditory nerve to the temporal lobes, the area in your brain where hearing takes place.  If you are not hearing-impaired, hearing simply happens. Listening, however, is something you consciously choose to do. Listening requires concentration so that your brain processes meaning from words and sentences. Most people tend to be “hard of listening” rather than “hard of hearing.”

How NOT to listen: This is how ‘hard of listening’ show up.  While ‘listening’ to the other person we are busy

  • evaluating what they are saying,
  • judging,
  • jumping to conclusions, Read more »

The Power of Vulnerability

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Vulnerable

‘Maybe stories are just data with a soul’.

I love stories, so this quote by Brené Brown speaks deeply to me. Brené studies human connection – our ability to empathize, belong, love. In this poignant and funny TED talk she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity.

Click here to watch the 20 minute video. Enjoy!

This Thing Called FEAR

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Fear

‘We have nothing to fear except fear itself.’ Franklin D Roosevelt.

There are plenty of quotes about fear. And a few acronyms too: FEAR standing for  False Expectations Appearing Real. Another version of this is False Evidence Appearing Real. More recently I heard a new one: Future-imagined Emotion Appearing Real.

Human beings are born with just two basic fears. One is the fear of loud noises. The other is the fear of falling. All other fears must be learned.

As I write this, I can feel the familiar telltale signs of fear in my body: My arms and legs feel heavy, my stomach feels tight, my throat constricted. All that, just because I am thinking and writing about fear! Read more »