Tag Archives | relating to others

HAVING A TECHNOLOGY FREE DAY

By on December 1, 2014 in Blog

These days technology is everywhere, its unavoidable and many of us live our lives through technology. You’ve only got to step on a train or a bus or the tube and what you’ll find is a carriage full of people locked into the small world of technology held within their hands. The tablet, the kindle, the i-phone they are the new newspapers, the new books and the new cinemas. It’s where we find everything we need and we have become very dependent upon them. Could you imagine a day without your phone, your email, and your computer? The answer is probably no.

There was an attendee on our Journey to Mastery programme this year, who came in distraught one session because they had lost her i-phone. A whole week with no access to that virtual world that these technologies allow us into and they were at a loss as to what to do. It started me thinking, what would we do if we gave up technology for just one day? Have we become so dependent on it that we can’t?

It’s an interesting thought.

Now I go on Facebook quite regularly and recently I’d noticed that it had crept into my life more than I’d like it to have. I found myself checking it in between my work tasks, and whereas before maybe I went online once a day I would find myself checking numerous times in one day. So I’ve decided to give myself a break from it for a while, and what I’ve noticed is that I have a lot more time to get things done! I am also having better conversations with my friends and family than I have before. It’s only been a week but I’ve really noticed the difference.

Let us look at technology in the workplace. Now we are inundated with emails in our inbox everyday I don’t know many people who get less than 50 emails a day in their inboxes at work. There is an overload of information, but not much real communication going on. When you look at the research into communication the majority of communication (65%+) is got through physical signals, and just 7% of communication comes through the written word alone. So that is a 93% chance of a miscommunication by just using the written word alone, and yet, most of us now rely on that written communication as our primary way of contacting others whether it be by text or by email.

There’s another side to technology, the fact that it drains our energy. I don’t know many people who are energised by being at their computer terminal all day. I don’t know many people who after a 30minute foray on Facebook feel ‘raring to go’. So when we are all feeling under pressure and are tired and stressed, perhaps a day without technology might just allow us to recharge and regain our energy?

My belief is that the world around us IS a place of abundance. It is designed so that it can feed us energetically. When you look at small children they know absolutely how to interact with the world so that it feeds them. They use all their senses so that the world becomes a place of adventure, fun and fulfilment. So why don’t we see if we too can tap into the wonder of the world without technological interference?

As most of you will know at Meta we talk about ‘filling your fuel tank’. We talk about the fact that most of us right now are running our own internal energy fuel tanks on empty and we need to top them up. My suggestion is that by just taking one day a week away from technology, you can top up your fuel tank more fully.

Now technology is all around us, its impossible to have a technology free day at work these days, but we could control our home environment. If you didn’t have your phone, your computer, your tablet, your kindle, your TV for one Saturday or Sunday, what would life be like? What would you do? Think about it for a moment.

If the world is a place of abundance, if it is set up to feed you and energise you, what could you do in that day to refill your fuel tank and get yourself ready for the week of work that is ahead? Remember when Sundays were a day of rest? Maybe that was for a reason! So how about we go back to a time when we got out into nature, talked more, interacted with the world more, became more involved IN the world rather than escaping the world.

The world is a big place. Vast in fact, why not tap into the potential and energy that it provides? Why not have one day a week having adventures and having fun? A day free from technology – a day of love, laughter and joy. A day reconnecting with the world, and reconnecting with those we love.

The festive period is all about reconnecting and remembering. So take just one day to refill your fuel tanks, to get them full to the brim, to get excited about life again, to just go and have FUN. We think you deserve that.

Have a wonderful festive period all of you,

With love,

Jo and Di xxx

 

 

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THE CHOICES WE MAKE

By on November 4, 2014 in Meta Org Blog

What sort of a day have you chosen to have today?

Most of us would respond to this question by starting with: ‘I was OK until such-and such happened,’ or ‘Well, I had to do such-and such, so I was affected by that’, or just with irritation: ‘If only I could choose!’

I’m here to remind you that those are all choices too – that’s the bad news! And the good news is that once we really grasp that it’s always a choice, we can choose differently and feel better for it.

So what do I mean when I say that we always choose? When I first came across this concept, I couldn’t make sense of it. I thought that there were too many outside influences on my life – my work, my relationships, the weather, the state of my finances, the traffic – the list goes on and on! So I rarely felt as if I could choose what my day was like; it depended on what was happening around me. I was a fairly typical victim of circumstance.

Then gradually I began to realise that maybe it was a choice of sorts, to be a victim of circumstance, and that just made me feel worse! When you get this, you just feel cowardly or stupid: why don’t I just walk away from this job, this relationship, that makes me feel like a victim of circumstance?

Eventually I began to grasp that it isn’t necessarily about running away from things that adversely affect you; in fact, that’s not possible. If we are used to being a victim of circumstance, then we will take that attitude into any situation. It is about becoming conscious of what choices we do have in any situation.

The essential distinction is between passive and active choices. A passive choice is where ‘they’ or ‘it’ have made us feel or react this way. We allow the circumstance to be in control of our destiny, our mood, our attitude, and we passively accept its influence. We say, ‘There’s nothing I can do about it.’

Yet this is not how we are naturally wired. For evidence, look at how we handle things as children, before we learn to be passive. Children don’t think, ‘Dad’s in a bad mood today, so I will have to keep quiet and not be a nuisance.’ They think, ‘Dad is in a bad mood today, so I will see if I can make him laugh, or I may go and play with my favourite toys and leave him to it – he’ll get over it.’ Children find a way of making it work for them, by choosing how they react.

We are intended to be in control of our own destiny and we have the ability to do it, by consciously choosing how we react to circumstances. It is up to me to decide how I will react to bad news, someone being unpleasant, a traffic jam, and this is what gives me control. It becomes an active choice.

We are capable of doing this – we all do it sometimes. For example, ‘I’m tired and I had a bad day, but I want to go and see my friends and have fun, so I’ll have a good shower out on my favourite perfume/after shave and put on my glad rags, and then I’ll be up for it.’  So let’s just choose to do this more often!!

  • We can choose to make bad news a reason to allow ourselves an indulgence to make us feel better, or a prompt to make a change in our lives
  • We can choose to let someone being unpleasant keep their attitude to themselves and let it go past us – walk away and leave them to it
  • We can choose to use a traffic jam to listen to our favourite music or an audio-book

By making a conscious, active choice, we take back control of our own mood, our own attitude, our own state of mind. This helps us to make our lives work, no matter what, and keeps us in a place where we feel we can always make a positive difference, should we choose to.

Life is too short to be influenced by the negativity or adversity around us so let’s choose to enjoy our time here and make it work!!

in peace and love Di and Jo xxx

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REAL RELATIONSHIPS

By on May 27, 2013 in relating to others

How often do you tell the people you love that you love them? Or show them how much you care?

How often do you tell the people you work with that you appreciate what they do that makes life easier for you? Or that you enjoy aspects of their personality?

How often do you thank people for the everyday services that they give you? Or tell them when the service was more than you expected?

These questions tend to only occur to us when we lose someone we loved, yet they need to be part of our everyday lives. When someone dies, it reminds us that it could always be too late to say the things that really matter to those we know and care for.

And if we are to live joyfully, relationships we have play a part in that – by paying attention to the good things about our relationships, we both gain more joy and spread more joy.

I don’t understand why we have a cultural tendency to notice the negatives in our relationships. I do not believe that it is inherent – young children don’t do it until we teach them how to. Nor do I understand why we restrict our positive feelings about each other, rather than let our hearts be full – again, young children are extreme in their emotions, so inherently we all are too.

So how about having a month of daring to appreciate, enjoy, and voice the positive in all your relationships, and see what happens!

 

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WHAT IS IMPORTANT IN LIFE?

By on April 19, 2011 in Excellent organisations, Meta Org Blog, relating to others, Resourcing yourself, Working smarter

When we are caught up in our busy lives, it is easy to forget what really matters.  Out time seems to be eaten up by those never-ending ‘To Do’ lists: targets to achieve, chores to be done, projects to complete and there’s always more to add to the list, no matter how much we get done!  It is depleting, exhausting and we end up malfunctioning in one way or another, because we are not machines, designed to do things, we are human beings, designed to be human!

And what does that mean, to be a human being?  We are a living system within a larger system and our purpose is to live in relationship with ourselves and with others.  Originally when we worked together to achieve common goals, it was to feed, clothe and house ourselves.  We realised that it was easier to achieve these things by co-operating and supporting each other, using our different strengths to play our part, and encouraging each other, so that we would all want to be a part of it.

Our ‘organisations’ are really just groups of people forming a bigger living system, so that they can achieve what they want to achieve more easily.  So why have we forgotten about how to use these systems well, and got caught up in just getting things done?

It’s time we remembered that it is through our relationship with others that we achieve more, it is by taking better care of ourselves that we really utilise our strengths.  It isn’t hard to do, in fact it comes naturally!

So for the next month;

  • Give yourself a break before you are completely exhausted, and just take some breathing space to be.
  • Address the human being you are dealing with before you just ask them to do something.
  • Offer help to others, and
  • Ask for help from others
  • Encourage others to take a breathing space with you

None of this needs to take up much of your time, in fact it will be better use of time than the attempts we make to keep going or look as if we’re keeping going, when we’ve really had enough. Instead of depleting your energy, it will help to re-energise you. When it comes down to it, none of us will want our epitaphs to say: ‘She finished the to-do list!’

 

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WHAT IF WE WOKE UP TO GOOD NEWS?

By on January 1, 2011 in Change, health+well being, relating to others, Ways of thinking

I sat down the other evening, mulling over what my day had been filled with and what tomorrow would hold. The T.V. was on in the background and the local news reader was reporting on the day in the region I live in.

It dawned on me that almost everything that was being reported was either filled with dread or contained a negative slant of some kind.

It was also at that point that my head did its usual thing of wandering off to find a nicer place to sit!

While it was there in “Better Place”, it picked up a paper that had been left on a bench.

At the top of the front page of the paper was the name of the paper – THE SUN.

But this was a different paper, no red top banner; instead it had a big circular sun in bright yellow. Inside the big yellow circle was a smiley face.

The slogan next to the big yellow sun was “The happy people’s paper”.

At first glance the front page story looked like any other National Paper – a picture of a person crying. On closer inspection, the story headline explained the tears; “With a little help from my friends”.

The story on the front page of this paper was about a lady who had lost her job due to the economic cutbacks being faced by everybody across the country.

Not one to sit around, she decided to use the time she now had to do something she had always wanted to do – Gardening.

Starting with her own garden, she transformed what was a neat, tidy garden into a horticultural masterpiece. This prompted words of amazement and wonder from her neighbours. This quickly spread to the rest of the street and further across the town she lived in.

Soon, there were knocks on her door, people from surrounding towns wanting to see this now well publicised garden. It turned out that the people of this town had spread the word. It was their way of letting people know that this woman was valued in their community and needed a little help. As part of their story, they had told of her plight, that she had lost her job but had used the time she had to make something beautiful rather than just slip away, not be seen and become a statistic.

Going back to the front page picture on the paper, the reason for the tears was that one of the people that knocked on her door happened to be the owner of a landscape gardening business and was so impressed with the lady’s efforts, they offered her a job! – Tears of Joy!

Now she has a job again, doing something she truly loves and all because the people that live around her rallied round someone when they were having a hard time trying to cope with all the bad stuff.

Of course, my head came back to sit in “This World” and thought about where it had just been in comparison to where it was now.

We have many different mediums for communicating news these days. Technology has expanded this into almost every home in the country. But nothing has ever come close to creating the impact that human behaviour can.

No newspaper or news programme can ever be more powerful than the human spirit either. When we combine to “do good”, we create magic – And you can’t deny just how good it makes you feel when you have been part of something good!

Whether it’s a donation of money or time to your favourite charity, or popping over the road to see if a neighbour is okay or just wants a chat and a cuppa, let’s create a better newspaper to pick up each morning –

We can do it with a little help from our friends/neighbours/colleagues etc, etc…

 

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THE MAGIC OF GENIUS

By on December 13, 2010 in Leadership, Living fully, Meta Org Blog, relating to others

It was one of those times when you really just want to curl up in front of the TV and not go out.  But we had tickets to see Nigel Kennedy play Vivaldi, and, having seen him before, we knew that we had to make the effort.

The concert was very late starting – to the point where large parts of the audience were doing the slow handclap of displeasure – and Nigel starts by apologising and taking the blame.  His little speech doesn’t really help the atmosphere – he doesn’t seem sufficiently contrite.

And then, he and his orchestra begin to play.  Everything changes in an instant.  Here is a man who not only plays his violin amazingly, he also plays with his orchestra in the most wonderful way.  He encourages them, enlivens them, gives them credit, all the while creating unbelievably beautiful music without seeming to work at it.

The audience applauds in between movements – unheard of in classical music – as well as at the end.  And the man who was irritating, when he first appeared, becomes someone they laugh with and respond to and delight in.

He is unkempt, he is unconventional, he is somewhat childish – and he is an outstanding performer, a musical genius, who experiments, who plays sublimely, who inspires his orchestra, who lives his music for you on stage.  What a great role model!  Not perfect, quite human, yet working his own particular excellence for us all to benefit from.

It is a totally uplifting experience, leaving your heart and soul singing.  Genius may not be ‘tidy’ or even comfortable sometimes, but it does inspire and remind us that excellence is magical.  And genius is infectious – it reminds us that we also carry elements of it inside us and helps us to bring them closer to the surface.

 

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THE IMPORTANCE OF FRIENDSHIP

By on March 1, 2010 in relating to others, Self awareness

I am feeling proud of myself this year!  So far, I have arranged to spend time with five friends that I haven’t seen for ages – well over a year.  It is so easy to let friendships drift in our busy lives, and my friends are very tolerant – they stay friends even through the periods of non-contact.

One of my dear friends died before Christmas, and I hadn’t seen her for about five years, although we had talked on the phone – too much hassle to arrange to go and visit, and now it’s too late.  I vowed to make sure that much of a gap didn’t happen with any other friends, looked at who I hadn’t seen for ages, and started planning.

These people have shared chunks of my life, often been vital in lifting my spirits, and loved me at my best and my worst.  They deserve a little effort on my part!  And there is great pleasure for me in re-connecting with them, catching up, sharing our stories.  Friends matter and cannot be taken for granted, and we can also make new friends in sites online such as Live Chat ChatEmpanada which is great for this.

Who have you drifted away from?  Who would you enjoy seeing again?  Do find a little time to arrange to meet up with them – it’s worth it.

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LOVE, ACTUALLY!

By on February 1, 2010 in emotional intelligence, Kindness, relating to others

There is something about the movie, ‘Love Actually’ that catches most of us – I wonder if it is just that it portrays some of the many ways in which love can come into and ‘disrupt’ our normal lives. Yet there is more to love than the romantic version, it has an even greater depth.

I was sitting looking at the photos on my windowsill this morning and smiling. Every day they remind me of people and places that I love, and every day they make me smile. These people and places are not linked to romance for me: they are linked to that heart-full love that comes with long-standing close relationships with family and dear friends.

And then I thought about the kitten who is coming to join my family next weekend. I don’t even know him yet, and I love him already. What is that about?

I believe that love is a fundamental part of being human. We need to love and be loved, not just in special cases, but all the time, in our everyday lives. Love is the emotion that brings our hearts into play and keeps them and us healthy and active. It is not meant to be kept locked away for special occasions, special people. It is meant to be the driving force of our everyday activity.

And we all know we want to be loved, yet we can’t demand it form others. What is within our control is the giving of love. We can choose to come from our hearts in the way we are with others. We can choose to open our hearts to the delight of things around us. And when we do, we renew the flow of love so that we can allow love to come back to us as well.

So, just for today:

  • Tell 3 people in your life that you love them
  • Approach 3 people you work with or encounter in your day with love in your heart
  • Look for 3 other reasons to activate the love code: notice the beauty of the spring flowers, your favourite piece of furniture, music that brings it out in you…

 

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VALIDATING OTHERS

By on October 1, 2009 in Kindness, relating to others

We are very prone to criticism – of ourselves and of others. I do not believe that this is natural, but learnt. Little children do not look for what’s wrong, they look for what’s right, and only when we have taught them to, do they begin the process of finding fault in things…

We forget how powerfully criticism operates in our lives, and how much that undermines our positive qualities, until we experience something that does the opposite – that validates a positive in ourselves.

How about validating your family this evening, telling them each something you love about them?

And what about your work colleagues – can you do the same? It will only take a few moments…

And if you feel really adventurous, how about the checkout person at the supermarket, the barman, the postman, that stranger in the street who looks happy – or sad. Remember, even if you don’t seem to have had a positive effect, you may have sown some useful seeds…

And before I finish, just let me remind you that you too are special – the way you smile, the care you take with some aspects of what you do, the way you are a friend to others. Give yourself a validation too – you deserve it!

 

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UNDERSTANDING

By on February 1, 2007 in Meta Org Blog, relating to others

There have been several TV programmes recently that have prompted me to think about understanding. What they have had in common is the theme of really getting to know others and how they think, work, live, and the result of that, which is inevitably a greater sympathy and understanding of their world and the way it works or doesn’t for them.

We talk about understanding something as if it is an intellectual exercise, but the word originally means to stand in their place, and experience it. True understanding will expand our awareness of the possibilities in the world, and will touch us emotionally as well as intellectually.

There have been lovely examples of this in the series called ‘The Secret Millionaire’. Every one of the people who have been giving away money in this series has gone to live in the community for a while, experiencing first-hand the way the community works and the way people live their lives there. And every one has had a change of heart, an emotional experience, a change of attitude – they have also all been moved to tears and seen their experience as a gain for themselves, and not just for those to whom they have given money.

Most of the time, we live in our heads, not because that is natural to us, but because that is what we have learnt to do. As small children, we cannot help but react from our hearts first, but we are good learners, and we soon realise that adults don’t do that. As children, we are also fascinated by other people’s worlds, yet we learn to judge them from our own perspective, and close down to the possibility of learning from them and truly understanding them.

So I have a suggestion: How about finding people whom we have a judgement about and seeing if we can really understand them. These could be our children, our parents, our work colleagues, or a category of people we don’t know at all.

All it requires is being prepared to spend time asking people to talk about their world, and listening with curiosity rather than judgement. Then to really imagine what it would be like to live in that world, and how you would feel if that were your world. For example, many years ago, I was prompted by one of my teachers to ask people begging on the street to tell me their story. It only took a few of those stories to make me realise that it could have happened to me, and that I would probably be an alcoholic or drug addict if it had. It took away my judgement of them, and made me very grateful for my own good fortune in having friends and family that supported me in tough times in my life.

If all of us were just to increase our understanding a little, I think we would change the way the world works!

 

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