Achieving Harmony

Acheiving harmony is such a big challenge for human beings. Those rare moments when we are at ease with ourselves and the environment we are in refresh us and put a special glow on living. There are two ideas to reflect on to give us more of these moments. The first is the idea of noticing. It sounds easy but so few of us do it. We often experience anxiety, anger, sadness, happiness, tiredness, hunger, frustration and so many other feelings in an automatic flow of not noticing. Noticing what you are experiencing is a first step towards achieving harmony. If you notice it, describe it, stand back from it and look at it, see what you do and don't understand about it and let some time pass with this noticing you will gain great insight. As with any exercise you get better at this the more you do it. You will get to a state when you can say to yourself 'I notice that I am angry and the characteristics of this anger are x, y and z and I can choose to keep this anger or to let it go.' Try this and see what it does for you. Notice.

The second idea is to be interested in yourself. Much of our dissatisfaction in the world is related to conflicts taking place within ourselves. We find it easier to blame the environment or someone else but very often we avoid looking at what is going on inside ourselves. I do this, most people do this and you probably do too. When you notice an experience, in particular one you don't like, explore what it is telling you about yourself. If you can't do or have something and you believe it is because of someone else look inside to see if there is something you are avoiding. Often you will be and you will have to look hard to see it to overcome our own very clever mechanisms for blaming others over taking responsibility for what you avoid yourself. The wonderful gift of this idea is that once you discover that it is something going on inside you that is causing you problems you then have total control on fixing it. It might be tough and require commitment but the outcome will often be better than the false pleasure you get from blaming someone or something else?

What do you think? Does this make sense and what does it raise for you?

Reflections on Gestalt - Change

Arnold Beisser wrote an article in 1970 entitled ‘The Paradoxical
Theory of Change’. In it he stated ‘that change occurs when one
becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not’. It
is paradoxical in the sense that a person can change and start to
become something he is not only when he truly knows what he is. It is
a lynchpin of the Gestalt approach and one of the clearest
descriptions of an idea originally set out by Fritz Perls.
I will here reflect on what this means in a coaching relationship and
invite you to add your own thoughts. An individual who seeks coaching
will often state their requirement as a need to change for some
reason. It could be to work better with colleagues, gain a promotion
or take a new direction in what they do. The role of the coach is to
help the individual achieve the change he wants. The Paradoxical
Theory of Change tells us that the most powerful way to do this is to
help him describe exactly where he is now. By doing so the client
gains insight and understanding about the attributes and
characteristics he currently exhibits and begins to see how these
might get in the way of the change he wants. In many Gestalt coaching
sessions a client will begin to realise that many of the obstacles to
the progress he wants are present within who and what he is at that
moment. When this occurs it is a great and helpful discovery as the
client can be shown that he has control over changing things that are
going on inside him. In fact he has much more control over this than
he has over the often originally perceived idea that it is something
or someone else that is getting in the way.
The other aspect of interest in this theory is the constant flipping
of the client between a state he ‘should’ be in and the state he ‘is’
in. Invariably the client is in neither state but hangs somewhere in
between. Making the shift to a clear description of what ‘is’ will
give the client a powerful grounding from which he can then consider
changing.
Finally it is noticeable that the ‘problem’ or ‘need for change’ cited
by the client up front is often not the most important thing to fix
for the growth and development of the client. It is always related to
where the client actually is in that moment. The role of the coach is
to help him describe this in as much rich detail as is possible.
What thoughts does this prompt for you?