debby.hallett@gmail.com – Page 4

Notice how you feel – satisfying moments

The main idea behind these Noticing exercises is that it’s a good thing to know how you feel about things. But so many of us are seriously out of practice in noticing how we feel. One of the basic intentions of Action Inquiry is for us to become better at noticing how we feel, naming how we feel, and then doing something to change how we feel (when we don’t like it).

Noticing and naming how we feel leads to more clarity about what’s really happening in our life, in the moment that it’s happening. It’s a skill anyone can acquire — it just takes practice.

This exercise is from Bill Torbert’s 2004 book, Action Inquiry.

Check in with yourself daily at each mealtime and bed time to identify the moment that was the most satisfying to you since the last check-in, and pause to articulate to yourself what made it the most satisfying. In the same way, identify the moment that was the least satisfying to you since the last check-in, and what made it so. Recall if you were aware of these reactions as the moments actually occurred.

All of these exercises point to the same thing: being more aware of how we feel. This awareness is the first step toward personal development.

Why don’t you try one of these exercises for a few days, and post a comment here about how you feel about it? 🙂

Notice how you feel – transitions

One of the hardest things we try to do is to describe to someone else exactly how we are feeling. Skillful actions require a clear understanding of how you feel about what’s happening.

In Action Inquiry, one of our goals is to be able to quickly and accurately assess how we are feeling, so that we can more skilfully decide what’s the best action to take. It’s part of the Inquiry before the Action in Action Inquiry.

Bill Torbert, in his 2004 book, Action Inquiry, gives us a few exercises intended to improve our ability to notice how we feel. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But once you try these exercises, you’ll probably find that it takes practice to notice how you feel.

So, here is another practice made to help us learn to notice how we feel.

As you transition from one activity to another, bring the transition into your awareness by noticing how you feel about ending the previous activity and beginning the next one.

The intention here is for you to develop triggers to help you notice how you feel. “I ran out of time. I have to put that task down before I finished it, and I feel frustrated.” Just like that.

Try it for a week. You might want to let me know how you get on with it. Why not leave a comment?

Living in the present

I’ve been paying attention to how much of my waking time I spend doing something other than being in the present moment. At first glance, it may not seem that important to live in the present in your life. But think: every peak moment in your life happens in the present moment. Go back (yes, to the past) and recall: when were you the happiest? When did you feel most connected to the world? What are your most cherished memories? They come from an almost indescribable moment in time where you were present to all that was happening within you and around you, and you felt totally, completely alive. In the present moment. Not when you were remembering what happened yesterday, or last year, or a decade ago. Not when you are planning for tomorrow, or dreaming of next year, or imagining how wonderful it will be when this or that particular dream comes true.

Your joy happens in real time. Your sorrow happens now, as well. In fact, it all happens now. When you feel sadness at something that happened in the past, it’s really your thoughts about what happened that cause the feelings. And when is it that your thoughts happen? In the present moment.

If I had some sort of measuring device, I think it would show that about 75% of the time I am thinking about the past, which is gone, over, done with, never to be seen again. About 24% of the time I’m imagining a future that may never arrive, dreaming, planning, following long imaginary conversations to some conclusion that is SO not real, and I get lost in it. The scant 1% left over is what I devote to my ‘real’ life, as it is happening with me (to me?) right now: how I feel, what I’m seeing and hearing, what people are saying and doing, how I relate to others in my world. Just being generally useful and kind. (Or unhelpful and grumpy — it depends.) I’m uneasy with that 1% figure. I’ve heard that life is what’s happening while you’re busy making plans. Indeed.

A mindfulness meditation practice can help us be more gentle with ourselves, but at the same time, to notice when our minds wander to the past or the future. My mind goes off on its own, habitually, and makes up stories: I say this and then she says that and takes this thingamajig and throws it over there, and I say ‘Well! Hmmph!’ and off my mind goes until I notice that I’ve gone somewhere else and gently say, ‘Hey. Come back. Focus on right here, now, in this moment.’

It’s amusing, really. I find it hard to hold my attention deliberately in the present moment for more than a couple of seconds. Once my mind wanders off, it can be off on a jolly for many minutes before I realize it and call my mind back to Now. I have to laugh. It’s just the way our minds work. But if we can develop a bit more awareness of how our thoughts take on a life of their own, we can feel quite a bit more patience with ourselves, and with others. And our compassion will grow too. And that’s a good thing.

Notice how you feel – periodic check-ins

One of the hardest things we try to do is to describe to someone else exactly how we are feeling. One of the aims of practicing Action Inquiry is to become more aware of how we feel, in the moment, so that we can gauge whether we need to change something, do something different to get a different outcome. Skillful actions require a clear understanding of how you feel about what’s happening.

But before we can describe how we feel, we need to notice how we feel. It’s surprising how many people hurry through their busy days and never really notice how they feel. Until there’s something drastic, that is. When something drastic happens, we do notice how we feel, and it can be overwhelming. I think that overwhelm comes partly from not being very experienced in noticing how we feel, so when we notice it, it’s kind of surprising to us.

So, here is a practice designed to help us notice how we feel.

This exercise is from Bill Torbert’s 2004 book, Action Inquiry.

At home and at work (to the extent possible), set your watch alarm or cell phone to go off every 60 minutes. When it does this, take 30 seconds to notice how you felt mentally, emotionally, and physically at the moment the alarm went off (including any irritation that the alarm went off!).

The intention is for you to more quickly be able to identify how you feel in any given moment, to be able to describe to yourself how you felt. “I’m mentally stimulated, emotionally calm, but my left leg hurts behind the knee.” Just like that.

Try it for a week. You might want to let me know how you get on with it. Why not leave a comment.

Morningness, eveningness

The finding is that “people whose performance peaks in the morning are better positioned for career success,” according to a recent Harvard Business Review article called The Early Bird Really Does Get the Worm*. The authors refer to morningness and eveningness, which seems kind of, well, academic. Otoh, it IS Harvard University.

The ideas that follow are general tendencies found in studies of large groups of people. It doesn’t mean that every morning person is optimistic, nor that every evening person is extroverted.

In general, then, Evening People tend to:

be smarter
be more creative
have a good sense of humour
be more outgoing
like to sleep in whenever possible

Morning People tend to:

be more conscientious
anticipate problems and attempt to minimise them
get better grades in school, which leads to better universities, which lead to better business opportunities
be proactive, which is linked to better job performance, more career success, and higher wages

One obvious difference between a Morning Person and an Evening Person is that the Morning Person tends to get up at the same time on non-workdays as they do on workdays. They would rise at, say, 6am on Saturday and Sunday as well as on workdays. The Evening Person will tend to sleep in on non-workdays, usually by about 2 hours. If he usually rises at 6 on weekdays, he’ll sleep in until 8am (or later) on weekends.

Lots of people report they’d like to change themselves to be more of a Morning Person, maybe because it seems the the business world is set up to expect morning productivity. For example, how many full-time positions to you know of where you could work from, say, 12 noon to 9pm?

Much of the tendency toward morningness or eveningness is changeable, but only to a certain degree. It tends to be about 50% genetic, and it seems that the tendency is to become more of a Morning Person as one gets older. But the authors aren’t very encouraging about changing your tendency. They hold some hope that organisations will start to treat this morningness and eveningness as the next diversity element, and create work environments where both types will flourish.

*This article is in the July-August 2010 issue of Harvard Business Review, HBR reprint F1007E.

What’s the right thing to do for your children?

I was talking to Marie yesterday. Marie’s daughter, Sarah, who is 9, is very much into her gymnastics and competes regularly.

Sarah does quite well in her local and regional competitions, often winnng a medal, but she’s not nationally competitive in her age group right now. Next weekend she’s going to an invitational open competition, where all the best 9 year old gymnasts in the nation will be competing.

This dilemma for her loving mum Marie is this: “Should I encourage her competitiveness and desire to win by telling her she can do it, that I have confidence in her, and she should really go for it and she’s sure to have a good result? Or should I be more realistic and try to prepare her for disappointment by telling her that the most important thing is for her to try, to have fun, to do her best, but to remember that because of her circumstances (a new coach, emergency surgery causing time off, etc) not to get her hopes up, and be prepared to not place so high?”

I asked Marie what was the most important thing to her in raising her daughter? What was her biggest purpose?

Preparing them for life in the real world (where we regularly experience disappointments)? Nurturing their self-confidence so that they feel good about who they are? Protecting them from life’s tougher knocks?

There are two things this conversation brought to mind.

One, I hear a lot about the British culture of mediocrity, a topic of discussion especially during international individual sporting competitions –how we don’t encourage an attitude of winning, but one of trying your best. As a result (so some people say) Brits are seldom winners. The winners that DO emerge from the culture are idiosyncratic, and particularly noted for their unusual commitment and extreme will to win. Hmmm. I wonder how that unusual commitment and will to win is born? How do the exceptional performers develop their self-belief and confidence?

Second, how well do we prepare our children for the real world if we protect them from disappointment? What will happen to them once they begin to venture from the nest? Will the fledglings fly on their own? Or will they fall to the ground because they are unprepared.

I’m sure my bias is showing here. Provide love, nurturing and safety, plus good role models for self-confidence, positive thinking and taking risks (to an extent). Take care how you model fear of failure, acceptance of mediocrity or how you project your own limits onto your kids. Help them to prepare themselves the best they can for success, then let them try, and them help them learn from their results.

If Sarah doesn’t get the result she wants, then Marie can help her find a way to improve and get a better result next time.

Ethel May, Agnes, Claudine Rudy

My mother has a bit of mystery in her life, and in her origins.

We all knew my mother as Claudine Rudy Peterson, born on 22 May 1918 in Indiana. She died 18 Mar 1993, at her home in Fullerton, California.

My cousin Jay recalls teasing Claudine about really having the name Agnes. Jay used to tease her and call her “Aunt Agnes” and she would bristle at that, only half kidding. Usually, he called her “Aunt C”.

When I began my research into the family history, I joined Ancestry.com. What a great resource! I use it for research, connecting with others who are looking into the same names, and building my (several) family trees. I’ve been a member for 2 years now. Some of the user interface is clunky, and it can be inconsistent, but for the most part it sure does beat going in person to parishes, government record offices and official census repositories.

My mother was known as Claudine, named for her father Claude Rudy. Her mother was Cecile Beatrice Brunk, who was always called “CEE-sill”.

I made my first search on Ancestry, using these details. The only result was for someone called Ethel May Rudy. Born 22 May 1918 in Jackson Township, Howard County, Indiana. Mother Cecile Brunk. Father Charles Rudy. Charles? That could well be a typo. Charles and Claude aren’t that far apart. There was no other result.

My next stop was FamilySearch.org: Claudine Rudy, born 1918, Indiana USA. No result.

I tried Agnes, all other details the same. No result.

On a whim, I tried Ethel May Rudy, all other details the same. Result! Ethel May Rudy born 2 May 1918. Mother Cecile Brunk. Father “Charles or Claude Rudy”.

Well, well, well.

I went back to check the census records for 1920 and 1930.

In 1920, I found Claude and Cecile, along with their eldest daughter, Norma, age 5. Then there is a daughter called Agnes, age 3. Since this census date was 1 Jan 1920, my mother would have been still 1 year old, not turning 2 for 4 more months. There’s no child of that age. These are the only children listed.

In 1930 (1 Apr 1930), I find Claude and Cecile again, with Norma age 15, Claudine age 11, Vivian age 2 years 8 months.All correct ages. No Agnes.

So, I’m more confused than ever.

Who was Agnes? Where was Claudine on the 1920 census? Where is Ethel May, who has the same birth date as Claudine, in all this?

I haven’t solved it yet. I’ve even consulted with a professional genealogist, who suggested I apply for her original Social Security Administration application, which is supposed to have her birth name. I’m waiting for that to arrive.

I’ll let you know what I find out.

Learning Loops

When we experience something in life, we can look at it as an outcome. If the outcome isn’t what we expected, we can tell this by our reaction, even if we aren’t aware of exactly what we were expecting. It can be enough to notice that you are surprised. Or disappointed. Or some other feeling that helps you become aware that you have a result you didn’t want.

Capable learners learn from their experience. By this, I mean that when you recognize that you haven’t got the result you expected, and inquire into that result, you can change one of three things to get a better result.

You can change your action, or behaviour. This is single loop learning. Don’t like what you got? Change what you do, and you’ll have a different result. If you are skillful in selecting what to try next, you may get a better result. If your husband always forgets to take out the recycling, you can try sending him a reminder email. If he still forgets, you can try having him set a reminder in Outlook.
You can change your approach to the situation. This is double loop learning. Don’t like your result, even after trying several different actions? Maybe you want to change your approach. When you change your approach, or your strategy, then new actions arise as ideas to implement the strategy. If you’ve tried sending your husband an email to remind him to take out the recycling, and tried task reminders, and he is still forgetting, you might change your approach to the problem. You could decide to do it yourself. You could have a meeting to find out what he thinks might work to help him remember. Your actions would certainly change, but the key here is that you changed your strategy, or approach to the situation
You can change you entire vision, or purpose. If your vision of what you are trying to do changes, then your approach will be different and your actions will be different as well. This is triple loop learning, where you can see a broad landscape and quite a distance into the future. Your partership with your husband is based on spiritual and personal development. It might not matter who actually does what task, but you might feel that re-negotiating the division of household chores so that each person has a good mix of the easy, the delightful, the mundane and the abhorrent. (For example.) Then a whole new approach or strategy is in order, to manifest this whole new purpose. And the actions you take will of course be different.

Most of us are very familiar with the single loop learning approach. We know the old adage that “insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Think of the sentence that begins “When I don’t get what I want . . .“. Most of us can see how that might well be completed with: “I try again“, or “I try harder“. Insanity? (hmmm.) A more adaptable, more learning-based approach, would be to ” I try something different“.

Some of us would look at an unwanted result, and think “I’ll try another approach to the same goal, because the goal I’ve set is the right one!” This is double loop learning in action.

To use triple loop learning in your life is pretty sophisticated. Only the most capable and skillful learners take such a broad or long view.

How many times have you questioned your life’s purpose? Or your vision for your life (and your future)? Probably, if you’re like most people, not often, if ever. When you do, it can be confusing, upsetting and scary. But when you examine your life and apply solid principles of inquiring into your own actions, you have the means to create the rich, exciting and fulfilling life you want.

This is Action Inquiry, at its very best.

Healing family rifts

I thought my family was pretty normal. I never thought of it as dysfunctional. Not until I took a post-grad course in abnormal psychology. What an eye opener!

My father was married once before. I knew he had one son from that marriage, Jim, because I’ve seen photos from when I was small. Jim must be around 20 years older than I am. When I was a toddler, Jim had an infant son, Jimmie. Our father died in 1970, and I haven’t seen or heard from Jim or Jimmie since the funeral. In the past two years I have been exploring the family tree, doing quite a bit of genealogy research, and I found a photo that’s labeled “Grandpa Dan with Jimmie and Donnie – 1939.” Donnie?! That’s my grandfather, and my half-brother Jim, and he seems to have a younger brother Donnie, maybe 2-3 years younger. That means my dad had two boys. Which would mean I have (or had) two brothers! I never knew them. Recent attempts to trace them have been fruitless, so far.

My mother had 3 sisters, one older and two younger. In the late 1930’s or 40’s the three eldest sisters moved from the farm in Indiana to Los Angeles. The youngest sister stayed with their mother and father on the farm. In the late 1960’s, grandpa died and left rather a lot of money to his wife and their 4 daughters. A few years later, grandma died, and all the remaining assets passed to the daughters. Something happened during that time, having to do with the estate, that caused a row between the California girls and the Indiana girl. I never really knew what it was, but it must’ve been a huge thing: my mom and one of her sisters held onto that grudge against the Indiana sister until they died. That’s 60 or 70 years. Now the three Californa sisters have all died, and I’ve been making attempts to re-connect with my one living auntie. The fight was in the previous generation, and I don’t think it has to do with me, at least, not now that the other sisters are all dead.

So, the family I thought of as pretty normal seems to have a lot of problems, hidden secrets and broken relationships. I think about that quite a bit and have taken some steps to change the family dynamic. No joy yet.

I DO notice that this sort of family break-down isn’t that unusual. I have friends who have broken off relationships with their own children, and with their parents. That’s hard for me to understand, but then, I don’t come from an abusive background. I simply do not understand how fathers can basically disown their children. I just don’t get it.

Anyway, I think I may hire some family researcher (genealogist) to help me with my father’s first marriage and their children. I haven’t been able to find any records of it anywhere so far.

My mother’s Indiana sister is still living, I think. Last year she dropped her lawsuit against my cousin for the mismanagement of her mother’s will (she was the last California sister.) I was named as an interested party in that suit, so she knows my address. Two postcards I’ve sent haven’t been answered. Indiana sister has three sons, my first cousins, whom I haven’t seen since I was in my teens. One of those sons has a pretty well-known basketball-playing daughter, whom I found on Facebook. I sent her a note to let her dad know I was wanting to reconnect, and if he did too, to please email me. No word. But I noticed that shortly thereafter, someone from that town was reading this blog. So maybe I should ramp it up and try the direct approach — like, pick up the phone! I wonder whay I don’t do that? What am I afraid would happen? That she would just not want to talk to me, or that she has passed away and it’s too late.

How to ask for recognition

We’re working on making our relationship better. The reason we married all those years ago was to work together on personal and spiritual growth, within the relationship. By that very commitment, we got what we intended. Every difficulty is the path. There is no place else to go to work on myself, or on our relationship with each other.

So I try to follow Dr Phil’s advice: ask for what you want, don’t moan about what you don’t like.

That’s harder than it sounds.

Whenever a subject comes up that’s distressing, all I seem to be able to notice at frst is how distressing it is, what specifically it is that I don’t like. But when I settle down to try to be clear (first to myself, then to him) about what it is that I DO want, I struggle. I persevere, but I struggle.

I try to phrase things in “I statements” like for instance “I feel sad when you don’t share with me what’s going on in your life.”or, “I feel lonely when I have no one to share my successes with.”

Then I try to say what I’d prefer instead. “I’d like it if you came home and shared with me the highlights of your day at work, and maybe one thing that caught you a bit by surprise and caused you to learn something about how you were being or how you were seeing things.” Or, “I want you to recognise my wins, and cheer me on.”

Like that.

In return, I get the respect that comes from being listened to. I receive a willingness to talk, to see what can be done, to understand what I mean and what I want. Solutions appear.

For example, if I want more words of encouragement or acknowledgment, I need to be sure that I’m sharing my troubles or successes at a time when he’s free to give what I’m asking for. To that end, I’m no longer going to email him with my successes throughout the day, when he’s busy and has only time for a few words. Instead, I’ll save my stories until he comes home. That way, he can be with me in the way I’m wanting.

How easy is that? (Actually, not that easy at all.)