Increasing awareness
Nynke September 29th, 2006
Why increase awareness?
To see problems before they see us, or, at minimum, at about the same time, and most importantly, to see what solutions we have already found. The sooner we see our most frustrating problems already may have been solved, the more time we have for moving forward with more enjoyable things. We cannot afford to waste the time we have. And that can give us our (competitive) edge.
Where are we in the scale of states?
What if this is an excellent example for illustrating use of chakra’s to figure out where we are in the Now - meaning in which state we physically are - and to consciously steer where we go with self, other and context in mind?
- White - normal state of mind/unconscious of immediate context/potential victim
- Yellow - state of relaxed alertness/generally conscious of immediate context/armed
- Orange - alarm state/specifically conscious of immediate context/loaded
- Red - (mental) aikido/all possibilities/exchange
Condition red is where we can install and/or reveal new drivers. This is where we can (re)program our balance and coordination of states of mind. We can code things like “we do NOT immediately fire on just about anything that makes a noise or moves”.
How can we code for increased awareness?
There are many many ways. For instance, by what-iffing we can pose tactical problems that perhaps need to be resolved going forward. To my knowledge, playful games work best.
Our newspapers and media are full of the most exulting and horrible things. I step in the shoes of others involved and ask myself how I would have felt in and likely handled those situations. Like, could I have avoided this horror? If not, what could I use to evade or counter and safely remove myself from what seems to be happening here?
I also use movies woven in imaginative journeys like mystery space ship mocking bird.
And I regularly play “biker games”. These are games where I practice physical awareness. Like, how many, and which of my colleagues, can I make myself disappear with, and sneak up on? How many of them can sneak up on me - if colleagues notice, and figure out the game I am playing, and join in, the game becomes quite foolishly neat ;-))
And I often play a simple awareness game at conferences: Every time I see someone I know before they see me, I score, and each time they see me before I do, I subtract a point of my score.
Who are likely to explore some NEW games?
My esteemed colleagues of course! How to recognize who we are?
- White: We have our heads out of the sand, and accept we live in an increasingly violent and aggressive world, and that karma always comes back, karma created from acting rashly as well as not acting at all. We keep that in mind, practicing our own conguence and maintaining connections.
- Yellow: We playfully tyrant ourselves and others that defeatism is a self-fulfilling prophesy. If we don’t believe we can make a difference, indeed we won’t. We can perhaps not help others directly, but we can help ourselves make our own dreams come true. Expansive (professional) optimism is what we rely on.
- Orange: Talking walk and walking talk that it is okay for me to “give in”, as long as I don’t “give up”. We “show, don’t tell (others to do it)”.
- Red: Before each actual mental aikido involvement, we ask ourselves if we are ready for the responsibility of applying such practices in that particular context/environment.
When to apply mental aikido?
When we are actually being attacked by a predator. So we need regular coaching, consulting and facilitation gigs to practice and tune our timing of Fight-Flight-Freeze patterns.
For example …
- Welcome to the Hell of Infinite Mess again, Nynke.
- Oh, S**t
- How Fascinating!!!
- “React” by increasing awareness and recreating my mind-set!
Excitement likely won’t kill me, but surprise can, easily, so let’s buy some time so I can still respond and not have to react!
What resources could be helpful?
What if we were to build and practice some kind of “power and strength continuum scale” (so that we do not bring a kitchen knife to an all-out corral gunfight?)
What if we practice/integrate/embody/exchange on “How to effectively … avoid, evade, and counter predatory people”, so we can focus on making our own dreams come true, and perhaps those of our esteemed colleagues, in expansively optimistic professional resource circles.
An example of such a power and strength scale for fearlessly engaging with victimizing chaos and predatory dominance dogma’s could be:
- Create a presence (change the balance in the eyes of a predator)
- Leave (strategic withdrawal)
- Make eye contact (you are not invisible, nor is your intent)
- Verbal warning (dissuade)
- Unarmed countermeasures (de-motivate attackers)
- Non-arrow tools (mental-aikido in a can (or workshop ;-))
- Heavy impact tools (for example, your flash light can be used for other things than shedding light in the dark! Like we can introduce agility and lean processes, support open source movements, implement Satir Growth model, …)
- Death dancing options for cleansing and renewal.
Do you have more ideas for playfully raising awareness and learning mental aikido?
