tone

Restarting With Intention

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

1214 Relax and Succeed - I myself am made entirely of flawsI hope your summer’s were rewarding in many ways. As we come back together to grow and share, I’ve decided to experiment with a new mix of elements for the blog. There still will be my traditional essays, but I’ll also be adding some new approaches and revisiting some old ones in the hopes that they can help facilitate some very practical benefits in all of our lives.

Today we’ll start off by talking about starting off. The whole point of taking control of your life involves being intentional about how you live. So don’t start each day in some hazy, unfocused, directionless way. Many people will begin by speculating about their day based on opinions they’ve formed on previous days. Then, whether they day wanted to surprise them or not, they’ll unconsciously steer their day like every other, blind to any opportunities for change.

The other way to wake up is to know that your mood is in your own control. You can have a calm Captain in both light and heavy seas. So don’t wake up and let chance decide the direction of the day. Remind yourself that your conscious choices will shape your day. You need to remember to be present for those choices.

Relax and Succeed - Try less to be with someoneThe first choice you can make is to actually provide yourself the sort of stimuli that makes it easy for you to feel good. For many, the handiest and surest way to accomplish this is the same way movies do it–with music. So you can find your own song, or you can use the one I’ve posted below. For my part, I chose something with a beat and a sound that I thought could work for readers around the globe, of any age, and leave them feeling just a little pumped up.

The point of this exercise is to demonstrate that to be spiritually responsible and psychologically healthy, we have to have those as conscious objectives and we must always be scanning the world around us for opportunities to move toward the sorts of influences and challenges that create joy and/or help us grow. To do that we need to feel vital and energetic.

I actually had a different song slated for this spot, but on Sunday I heard a singer I’d never heard before and I felt her song was a perfect fit to match my description of what I was looking for. I didn’t want to overdo it, but I wanted a beat and sound that could charge you up in a very mature and sophisticated way.

Her name is Erin Costelo, she’s from Nova Scotia, and this song is rather ironically called Low. It’s pretty groovy. Use it or whatever song helps you feel balanced, capable and enthusiastic about your own life. Learn to start your day like this every day. Make that a habit and you’ll have really helped yourself become more conscious all day long. Have a great week everyone.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organisations locally and around the world.

MoK: Casual Kindness

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

There are many ways to spread kindness into life. Most people remember the direct ways, like doing things for people or offering them a compliment, but there are also the indirect ways. Since people are experiencing what they’re thinking about, changing how someone thinks is to change how they feel.

Parents do this with their kids all the time. You’ve seen it. The kid is screaming about something, and then the parent introduces something new to bait the consciousness of the kid. Hopefully it’s not a threat or a gift, because if that happens too often that person will end up unhealthy. But if it’s an experience then it can be expansive.

So there’s the screaming kid at the grocery store, and the parent says, Do you want ride your bike this weekend with the adults, on the adult trails? And the kid starts thinking about that and they switch from anger to excited in no time. So why don’t we do that as adults? Adults actually argue with you to hold on to the idea that’s painful to them. Don’t try to change the subject on me! (Even though all the discussion in the world wouldn’t fix anything.)

You don’t want these efforts to feel forceful. It’s not some wedge of distraction you hammer into a conversation, but if you’re truly listening the way we all should–very intently and with no other purpose than listening–then you will find yourself struck with opportunities to turn the conversation toward something more enjoyable. It’s your nature. The trick will be getting out of its way.

If humans were designed to tune to negativity we never would have made it out of our first cave. We’d have been too scared. But instead we’re tuned for possibility. We see opportunities. So if you give someone an opportunity for positivity, well, that’s like bait to a fish. Eventually they’ll bite. And if you’re a patient fisherperson who doesn’t try to force the hook in, then you might find that you can succeed on your first try.

Today in the March of Kindness you want to listen carefully to the overall tone of a conversation. If it’s angry or sad or defeatist, listen intently and a natural response will occur to you that would pull the conversation toward something more pleasant and more productive. If you do it well people shouldn’t even notice that you did it.

That’s all that happy people do. When someone shoots them a ball of negativity, they gracefully give them back an easy play on a winning shot. You abandon the subject of their conversation and you focus instead on the tone only. You don’t argue any point, you simply offer a route to something more enjoyable.

You might have to offer it three times if they’re really upset, but eventually everyone would rather pedal their bike on a downslope. Just don’t listen with an agenda. Patiently listen and what to say or do will occur to you. Trust it. Your doubts are only made of thinking.

This is a very subtle form of kindness, and yet once you’re good at this it will be the one you’ll get to use the most. The sheer subtlety of it means it faces less resistance and it gets better results. So join the rest of us today and find some silver linings and help some others notice them too. Because in the end, we’re all in this life thing together.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.

Your Local Identity

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

What did yesterday’s meditation teach you that you didn’t know about yourself? Because that awareness is important: meditation is a study, and it should ultimately be a disassembly of the self.

875 Relax and Succeed - Within each of usWe’ll continue today from how you were affected by your nation and on to how your region and city and daily life function and how that impacts your daily thinking. It also starts to hint at the things you chose in life, like where you go and why. And that hints at who you’ve already become.

Your nation is an identity you experience rarely, whereas you live inside the culture and society of your area every day. There will a tone there. Regardless of what government wins, the majority of the people’s politics will tilt one direction or another. They’ll have certain beliefs and push certain ideals. What is your area known for and how do you fit into that identity? Are you a cheerleader or critic? Why?

If you grew up somewhere else then what you miss and what you wouldn’t go back for will tell you a lot. If you’re in your home town location will have been affected more subtly.

To know yourself through where you live just look at what is on your walls.  If there’s lots of pictures of sports stars or sexy girls but none of your children then that says something. If you’re married but your bedroom is decorated in a way that decidedly tilts toward the masculine or the feminine, that says something. Are you extremely neat and orderly or are you comfortable being scattered? This is all useful info regarding clear indicators of how you’ll react to people and situations. What you do, where you go and what you purchase is why Google can predict you.

875 Relax and Succeed - A man is notWhat do you keep as mementos? What do these say about you? What videos do you keep? What websites to you bookmark? What music do you listen to and why?

Also look at the places you like to go. What do they have in common? Yes, people aren’t usually too dull–they’ll have some outliers in their calendar, but for the most part people like the same restaurants etc. for the atmosphere and staff. So what is the atmosphere at your favourite places? What is it that these things conjure for you? Are you trying to look grown up and business-like or like a laissez-faire hipster bohemian…?

Stores spend a lot of time on their branding. Do you value your hard work and then work hard to make sure your money is going as far as it can, or do you value free time and keep a job that keeps you flexible over maximizing income? Each ownership group will usually have three stores in each mall that all progressively increase in price and status. Which one is yours and why?

875 Relax and Succeed - How you do anything

How do you drive in your city? Do you leave early and avoid rushes and if you have to wait once you’re there that’s okay, or are you perpetually scanning for a faster route even if that’s by seconds? That’s two very different people and you could answer a lot of questions about them and get them right from just that bit of information. So what do people really conclude about you and why?

Look more closely at where you live. Do you have the littlest house in a posh neighbourhood? Or maybe it’s the nicest or the neatest place in a rougher one. Maybe you chose your house for security reasons. Maybe privacy. Maybe view. Maybe schools. What was your ego secretly responding to when you chose that house? Even if you didn’t choose it you can still known what you like and don’t like about it.

Learn these things, add them to yesterday’s meditation and you should be learning a lot of things you didn’t know about yourselves. I appreciate a lot of you writing to tell me what you’ve learned–isn’t it shocking what we don’t know about ourselves? Feel free to put that stuff in the comments section if it’s easier.

Stay aware. Have a great day, discover more about yourself, make obvious use of that new knowledge and then tomorrow we’ll delve into one of the most important things that you ever had impact you. Enjoy your days!

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.