3 posts tagged “ease”

What are five words you really like? 
Submitted by purplesque.

Like many photographers before him, Richard Zaltman was visiting
remote areas of the world to capture images of people living
lives far removed from those in the United States.  

Here’s what made his experience different.

One morning, while walking through an isolated village in Bhutan, he suddenly got the idea of turning his camera over to the locals to see what they would consider significant enough to show others about themselves.  

Later, when he looked at all their pictures, he noticed that most of the photos cut off people’s feet. “At first, I thought the villagers had just aimed wrong,” Zaltman says.  “But it turns out that being barefoot is a sign of poverty.  Even though everyone was barefoot, people wanted to hide that - -which is an important message to see.”  

You never really know someone until you see the choices she makes.

We instinctively put people into categories to make the world more understandable and then get surprised by a co-worker’s sudden vehemence about a new subject.   That’s the mystery of life. You can have fewer surprises, however, when you seek to understand others’ less visible, underlying motives.

What others don’t reveal is often most revealing.

What one doesn’t say often says it all.

As surrealist painter, Rene Magrite wrote, “Everything we see hides something else we want to see.”  Surrealists in art and literature in the 1920s and 1930s sought to understand and portray others’ subconscious perceptions of the physical world.  

Remember that movie, many years ago, in which Mary Tyler Moore plays the grieving mother of her favorite son who died, choosing to avoid her surviving son?  In fact leaning away from the son and her husband (played bo Donald Sutherland) in the family photo? Ah senior moment, I can’t recall the name of this engrossing movie – can you?

That’s why it may be interesting to look back through family and friends’ photo albums – and your photo albums. See how people positioned themselves in group photos – and how they positioned photos in their photo album.

You may be more aware of your choices as you ask your family or circle of friends to join you in creating a celebratory group photo album online (wherever you are in the world), as you now can through SnapJot.

Now, if you’d like to glean some insights into why people do what they do -- so you can find the common ground upon which to work or play together - discover their unstated or even unconscious motivations for protection or pleasure

Uncover what they feel but are not saying. Here are four ways to learn more about underlying feelings -- yours and others  -- so you can be more thoughtful, clear and genuine in your choices and your communication.

1.  Look for the “Bare Feet” That Aren’t in the Picture
To better understand someone and how to inspire that person to take positive action, learn to recognize his unstated “hot buttons of high emotion”, positive or negative.  These are the major rules to his “operating manual”  -- what makes him run smoothly, bump into obstacles or simply get stuck.

People act most quickly and intensely to avoid what they fear, even if their worst fear has a much lower probability of occurring than the possibility of their dream scenario.  That’s because our deepest, most innate and primeval gut instinct is to survive.  We reflexively react to any appearance of danger from the most primitive, triune part of the brain, which was developed way back when “fight or flight” seemed the only options for any situation.

2. See Them in Motion to See Their Emotions   
Seek to understand what the other person most wants to avoid; what most annoys them or makes them angry or anxious.

To recognize their hot buttons, look for changes in their behavior as signals that you are on a hot topic of concern. Facial expression tells others how we feel, while our bodies suggest the intensity of our feelings.

Look for the “vital signs” of increased excitement such as dilated pupils, constricted throat that produces a higher and /or thinner voice, rapid blinking, flushed face, more rapid and shallow breathing or much less breathing and avoidance of direct eye contact when he had looked you in the eye earlier
in the conversation.  

If the person usually moves and gestures little, look for the times when he has more and more rapid body movements and hand or foot changes.  If he tends to be more animated, look for the times when he becomes more still.
Women, in time of increased concern, are more likely to “hand dance”, that is move the hands and forearms more.  

When seated, men tend to “leak” their feelings through twitching one foot when their legs are crossed.  In general, in times of conflict or other kinds of tension, women tend to move and talk more and more; men tend to move and talk less and less. Psychiatrist, Pierre Mornell wrote a book about this effect, called “Passive Men and Wild, Wild Women.”  

Once you recognize when someone gets upset, you can consider what gets them upset and come closer to understand their operating manual.  Now you can present your ideas in ways that address their concern, either directly or indirectly.  Thus you can get someone to either take action to avoid their perceived danger or recognize how the perceived danger can be overcome or avoided to they can contemplate an “upside” opportunity.  

3. People Often Don’t Understand Their Own Strong Reactions  
Many times we are not aware of our underlying fears or concerns.  We often go through life in a trance, reacting to earlier patterns, especially vividly negative experiences, and not knowing that we are not acting in our current best interests.  

A client of mine only realized at age 42 that because she had a stocky brother who physically and verbally bullied her, she’d developed a pattern the rest of her life of what she now calls “preemptive defensiveness” around any man she met with a similarly chunky body type.  

Only by understanding her previously unconscious “imprinting” from childhood could she begin to change her behavior towards new people she met.

Another colleague grew up in a household where tidiness and timeliness were paramount. He was the “black sheep” in the family who resisted.  Even into adulthood, he kept a messy home and office, and was often late, especially for people he felt were trying to control him. However, until he recognized the pattern -- and his core unconscious motivation for free could he choose how he really wanted to act.

Few people are aware of how dramatically bodies shut down in times of perceived crisis or even unfamiliar situations, yet the phenomena has wide implications. In times of fear or even mild discomfort, people have diminished hearing.  

They start listening to you later in the conversation and hear and remember less.  

Their peripheral vision narrows in times of mild or extreme upset. Even the ability to taste goes down. Imagine a police officer who’s afraid in a dark alley, a surgeon who becomes angry during an operation or a child facing a teacher on the first day of school.  

In each “shut down” situation, they are hampering their ability to perform and others may misinterpret their slowed down reactions, with possible negative consequences for several people in the situation. You may see the pattern in someone else’s hot buttons when they do not, especially if you are around that person frequently.

If this person is close to you at home or work, it pays to recognize their unstated warning signs so you appear as safe and familiar as possible to that person, so they can be open to hearing you.  

Don’t assume the other person fully realizes why she is saying or acting the way she is.  Her words or deeds may have very different meaning for him than for you.  For example, many Americans are disturbed when another person does not look them directly in the eye while talking.  Yet for some cultures, such as Spanish, direct eye contact demonstrates a lack of respect.  Many shy people or those deep in thought prefer to look away.  

When someone else does not act right, like you, your strongest instinct will be to make them act right by acting out a more extreme variation of your “right” behavior.  For example, you may become exaggerated in your attempt to look closely at the other person so they will look at you.  Instead, look to your “bottom line”, the main goal in the situation -- which may be to get a task done or to simply play.

4. We Are Far More Revealing by the Questions We Ask
Than the Answers We Give
To increase the chances of learning what is really on someone’s mind -- and thus what will motivate them to act -- know that people are far more revealing when they are the questioners.

When they are question you, rather than when you are questioning them.   While we are taught to ask questions to show interest and learn more about another person, we will learn more, more deeply and quickly when we get that person to ask us questions.

How?  

Explain something that engages their interest, touching on the highlights so they want to ask questions to learn more.  

Respond directly but briefly to their questions so they are “in charge” and asking follow-up questions to learn still more.  Note the direction that the other person’s questions take.  On average, by the third question, you will know more about the nature of their deeper concern or interest than if you had “taken charge”, even with good intent to ask your own sequence of questions.  

Why?

Because you don’t know what you don’t know.  Your line of questions will be based on your worldview and operating manual.   Their line of questions will reveal theirs.  Their questions bring you closer to what’s most on their mind, especially if they could ask them in close sequence to get at what they msot wanted to know.

5. What Do You Not See in Yourself?
Want to learn more about your own blind spots and hot buttons?  Or solve a nagging, recurring problem?  Or have a novel approach to an opportunity pop into your mind?  

Take time to do some of the apparently time-consuming daily tasks you often do too fast or hire someone else to do: garden, wash your car, walk rather than drive to an errand, build or repair it yourself.  

You need these times to “sidelong” glance at the periphery of your thoughts to gain insights into your own “operating manual.”

Savor the time to stay aware in real time.

When you do a physical task, especially one that involves motion, sunshine and fresh air, your mind can move in different directions.  Consider these task your “mental cross-training” to get deeper into your own psyche and imagination.  

Who’s Living Your Life?
You’ll gain a second benefit from your labors.  

To “anchor” that thought, here’s a story. Beth Berg created a job out of designing and maintaining rich person’s gardens in Southern California.  We went sailing near Santa Catalina Island in a boat lent to her by Richard, a client who was detained in New York and could not use it.  I asked her if she would ever hire someone like herself to do some of her maintenance tasks.  

“I don’t think so,” she replied.   “I think I would always want to take care of those basic things in my life.  Because if you don’t put the work into something, you don't know the worth of it either.”  

Beth said that she told Richard, her client, “We plant these flowers in your garden and most of the time you just walk by them.  It’s sad, really.  You don’t get the good feelings from your life that I get from your life.”

Ways to Sidelong Glance Back at Your Own Way of Deciding
• Do the mundane to experience the profound.  
• Go slow to go fast.  
• Step back from your hot subject to walk close to it.   
• Do something real to see something intangible.  
• Move your hands and body to move your mind and imagination.
• Look sideways to see directly.  
• Look wide to see narrowly.
• Look at what you hate to recognize what you fear and don’t like in yourself.  • Hear your criticisms to discover your sense of your own inadequacies.  
• Notice what you avoid to recognize what you most need to learn next.
• Notice when and where you dabble, doodle and dawdle to see your dreams for living the kind of adventure life story you really want.

... to Move Past Procrastination to Savor Your Just Rewards

Remember the agitated, bleary late-night looks on your friends' faces in college as they attempted to cram a semester of learning into the night before a final? Perhaps you were one of those crammers.

Then you probably resented righteous-looking people like me who appeared to spend a pleasant bit of time each day on reading and class note taking before sailing through tests.

 You'll be happy to know that people like me all get our comeuppance in other situations. How? Because everybody gets mind blocks to doing some kinds of tasks.

Mind blocks have nothing to do with mental acuity. They're very much a part of the human experience, albeit an irritating part for which most of us emotionally flagellate ourselves about, as we continue to avoid the task, thus incurring double damage. We all have them.

 We just have different kinds of places we get stuck on different kinds of tasks. My blocks, for example, are with big or boring talks. I can easily slide into writing a brief article or going on a half hour morning run along the hills above my seaside village of Sausalito.

Give me a larger task, however, such as writing a book or going into the gym for an hour (minimum needed) work-out or a boring "time-waste" task like getting to the dry cleaners or gas station and I can become diabolically clever at deceiving myself into all the reasons why I can't start, right now anyway, but will sometime soon. Sound familiar?

 Here's some tricks to getting yourself into a kind of task you often find yourself avoiding and even finding ways to feel righteous as you savor completion.

Vividly Specific Contrasting Scenarios

Picture the worst and best case situations -- in all their emotional details -- for not starting an important task now.

How bad could the consequences be if you don't get it done or done right?

How exciting could it be if you did it on time and superbly?

What if you intend to start it later today?

How many things "beyond your control" can prevent you from getting started? If you did, in fact, start it right now, when is the soonest you might be done if you get clear and focused, and allow no other interruptions until you get to a crucial state of completion or actually finish it?

 What small indulgence could you give yourself when you're done? Take a break to savor time with a colleague who makes you laugh? Get a surprise gift for a friend who's been especially thoughtful recently? Dive into another, slightly less pressing task and actually get ahead of the curve for once?

 See Your Success Again and Again

 Since most nurses have time-pressed lives, allowing yourself to savor each success is akin to imprinting on your psyche the experience of satisfaction with a task completed.

Just as athletes learn new habits to improve performance by watching videos of master athletes, then store up memories of those images of successful work-outs for their constant internal play-back, your stored-up memories of ease in task completion can motivate you to have those satisfying experiences more often.

You are literally seeing yourself repeat your performance. That's new habit-forming. You will become more naturally inclined to dive in early and get more tasks completed in a state of inward and outward grace.

 Take on a Big Task, a Bite at a Time

 Large or unfamiliar tasks where you don't feel especially confident about your future performance are the ones you're most likely to avoid. Write down the steps to completion.

 Call this approach "going slow to go faster later."
 Writing will make the steps more real and doable to you and your commitment to the timetables you attach to each task become more vital. They are right in front of you. Post your " tasks and timetable" where you can't avoid seeing it. Tell others of your commitment to that sheet. These actions will place the task higher in your consciousness.

 
Reward Yourself and Savor Your Rewards

Plan your rewards ahead of time. Diligent nurse that you are, don't deny yourself the reward when you are done by rushing onto the next task. Life goes by too fast anyway. For example, when I complete boring tasks -- and not before -- I allow myself time to do something that gives me pleasure, such as a stop at a bookstore or time with a friend. When I finish a big important task I give myself a bigger reward such as a trip or new outfit.

 Sidelong Glancing at It

Sometimes facing a task straight on just makes you freeze. Try to picture how to do it by "sidelong glancing", that is getting small glimpses out of the corner of your mental eye about how you can most easily do the task.

One of the best ways is to literally get moving and looking around. In times of mind-blocks, anger or tension, men tend to act out more while women tend to shut down, moving less. You will be more aware of your emotions and motivations when you get into motion. Consider walking, showering, eating or otherwise being "on your way" to doing the task. You will let your mind go naturally free.

 When you are in motion and not focusing directly on what you have to do, especially if you can get outside into the fresh air and sunlight, you can literally see farther, gain a larger perspective and see how the parts of the task can fit together.

You will pull up ideas from lower in your consciousness, think of apparently unrelated ideas that do, in fact, have a bearing on ways to get the task done. Your unconscious mind becomes your friend in helping you recognize your best path to accomplishing the task. And the task will seem less onerous because you lift your mood when you put yourself in motion.