Happiness

I bet, if you read or know me, you probably expect me to advocate for happiness.

parka
Creative Commons License photo credit: Jasmic

I don’t.

Here is why.

If you came to me and said, Jean, I want more than anything to be happy. This is what I would do:

Give me everything you have. I am going to flog you.

“But, Jean!” I hear you say.

Happiness is a relative state. If you want to be happy tomorrow, then making you really miserable today can lead to that. So if tomorrow I then don’t flog you and return some of your things to you, it is likely that you will be happy! (Timelines may vary.) Do you see how incredibly messed up that can make us?

I have been bothered by the idea of happiness for a long time, but it wasn’t until I started reading Satisfaction by Gregory Berns MD PhD that I understood why. He explains how people who win the lottery don’t usually have enduring happiness. And how people who suffer traumatic loss find happiness. Happiness does not come about at some permanent threshold of having or knowing. It is by judging where we are now against where we recently have been. It is something we choose. Something we get by deciding what we want to notice about our present and what we want to compare it to in our past (or imagined future for that matter).

This resonates too with what I learned through NLP Coach training. I can shift to a state of happiness through several means – creating a different context for what I am focused on, a different perspective to view it from, or bringing to the present a state I have experienced in the past or can imagine experiencing in the future. It is all about setting the terms for the comparison.

Fulfillment, satisfaction, flow, these are terms that have more depth and meaning in them. These are more accurate descriptions, I think, for the desired state we want to achieve at a personal level.

Free Tasty Technicolor Treats Creative Commons

CC: Pink Sherbet Photography


I am not interested in living in a happy world. And I think in many ways the problems we face today are created by efforts to live in a happy world. Giving our kids candy makes them happy. Maybe playing video games all day makes some of us happy. Is that a good measure of the world we want? Does that lead the system to create a harmonious flow for individuals and our collective? I want to live in a fulfilling world of flow. Don’t you?

Wand of Gratitude

Between Jerry sending me the book “The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude” and David Rose saying “wand of gratitude” I have to embrace my role as a freaky gratitude fairy. And I want a wand! Not that I think some magic dust will make everything alright. It won’t. Not that I think the right snap of my wrist dancing the wand will make something transport to the world of Harry Potter. No, I want the wand because it acts as an anchor.  An object that can remind me (and others) that gratitude is part of the alchemy of connection.

Crown Give-a-way Detail II
Creative Commons License photo credit: queenie13

Maybe I will make myself one. I have the craft supplies. 🙂

When I wave this wand of gratitude I want two things to happen:

  1. the gratitude I feel towards someone will be known and felt by any who witness it
  2. the person toward whom I direct the wand will recognize the gratitude they have

Because of these two things, we will recognize the value, tangible and intangible in what we have together and individually. And recognizing that value will make it clear how very precious it is.

I wave my wand of gratitude over you.

Shift Happens

The question is “How does it happen?” And also “How can we encourage it to happen?”

Yesterday, I said on twitter:

Questions I have been pondering for years now: what brings about an aha? what gets people to shift? how to get unstuck and take action?

Which is something I have been reflecting on since my early days of working with Drake Zimmerman on coaching and philanthropy. Or maybe it comes before that…going back into my childhood when I became fascinated by the brain (thanks PBS). In any case, it all came up again earlier this month when I sat down at a cafe with Clay Shirky. We had a powerful hour of mutual brain picking. He said he had just finished writing his next book and a question he was still mulling over was how do we get people to move between these spaces he had discerned and laid out for me.

Aha’s are those bright moments where the light bulbs flash on in the brain, and we suddenly see something in a way we had not seen it before. Sometimes this happens when we have a near death experience or a cherished one is ill or dies. Maybe it is a near miss or a sudden revelation. It can come from stillness and reflection. @SusanLipshutz shares, “Sometimes awakening, clarity comes from getting shaken up via an activating event that threatens the comfort zone, opens heart~”

@butyes declares, “an aha actually IS a shift–it’s the FEELING of an insight which changes the situation–and may make action possible.” So aha’s are a form of shifting, but not the only form. Shifting can also happen through determination and persistence. We can shift our habits. We can shift our views through reasoned argument. Sometimes shift is what gets us unstuck from the place we are or the way we are.

So I asked – what gets people to shift and take action. And the response was so useful, let me share it with you here.

Pain and the Away-From

Some people pointed to what gets us to wake up and move away from something. For example, @philwoodford said, “Usually a metaphorical gun barrel pointing at someone, in my experience.” Similarly, @brainsturbator asserts, “System Shock is the Currency of Consciousness Change. Why does the roshi smack the seeker?” Perhaps even an accumulation of is necessary, as @ValdisKrebs describes, ” enough knowledge/pain/processing have to accumulate for a tipping point or a spark to lead to aha/action.” And @nicolerufuku shared that “rock bottom forces a shift.”

Personally I don’t think we give enough respect to hitting our rock bottoms. For me they have been rich places for remaking myself and give me a lot of courage to take on new challenges (as I know I can survive failure).

@OctaviaMoon suggests that it can take a variety of things, “bottoms, even highs, loves, money….spiritual awakenings.” She goes on to say that, “yoga is a beautiful thing…takes you into the body where you might be stuck and makes things less literal.”

What I was expecting to hear from others but didn’t was something about carrots. I hear the pain and sticks method can work. Do carrots work too? Can we lure people to shift and get unstuck?

The Emergent Shift

Sometimes shifting is about not looking directly at what needs to change, instead it is about letting the mind rest. I think of this as letting the unconscious resolve things by putting the conscious mind elsewhere. @gordondym replied, “For me, it’s shifting attention to something simple, and/or thinking of something completely unrelated.” @butyes speaks to the emergent shift from another angle when she says, “but the aha itself–that often comes when one becomes still on the other side of worrying at the problem. In stillness there’s room to sense a little niggling glimmering something, and sit quietly with it, until, ‘oh!'”

Conditions for Shifting

While we may not want to cultivate the negative experiences that can make us shift, and perhaps we want to be more active than allowing an emergent shift, what can we do for ourselves and others to foster shift and get unstuck?

@HollyE4S offered a series of conditions that can help shifts happen:

  • Openness to grace
  • Openness to change
  • Action begets Action. Easier to shift in something that is already in motion.
  • Connect with others who are taking action
  • Learn first steps

Which reminded me of something I think I was first exposed to from @ken_homer and comes out of world cafe – find and take “a simple elegant next step.”

Looking back on my training as a coach, it feels like so much of our training was in developing competency with tools to help people shift or get unstuck – modifying beliefs, shifting frames and seeing multiple perspectives. I will review some of those in a post just for that.

What other ways to notice shift happening? And what can we do to spark it?

Rogue Waves

I saw an article on rogue waves not too long ago. And it really inspired me visually to think about how we compound upon each other.
Wikipedia describes rogue waves:

Rogue waves (also known as freak waves, monster waves, killer waves, and extreme waves) are relatively large and spontaneous ocean surface waves that are a threat even to large ships and ocean liners.[1] In oceanography, they are more precisely defined as waves whose height is more than twice the significant wave height (SWH), which is itself defined as the mean of the largest third of waves in a wave record. Therefore rogue waves are not necessarily the biggest waves found at sea; they are, rather, surprisingly large waves for a given sea state.

We have some rogue waves amplifying trends. As Taleb says, we live ever more in a land of extremistan (Black Swan).

The Draupner wave, a single giant wave measured on New Years Day 1995, finally confirmed the existence of freak waves, which had previously been considered near-mythical (from Wikipedia)

The Draupner wave, a single giant wave measured on New Year's Day 1995, finally confirmed the existence of freak waves, which had previously been considered near-mythical (from Wikipedia)

Let me explain a bit more about Rogue Waves before saying why I appreciate the metaphor so much.

In this LiveScience article, Choi describes the formation of rogue waves:

Normally a large wave breaks up into smaller and smaller waves over time, until the viscosity of a fluid damps out these small waves. Now the scientists demonstrate the opposite can happen in fluids — tiny waves can concentrate together to become abnormally large waves “that emerge surprisingly quickly,” McClintock told LiveScience.

Tiny waves, you and me, can concentrate, resulting in an unexpected giant wave. This is more than you and I adding up. This is a shocking single large event. This is not really a tipping point, where the system reaches some threshold and changes state.

What I appreciate about this as a metaphor is the thought of the consolidation of forces. It helps us grasp at something that I feel is crashing in on us. A wave in one system is coming together with a wave in another overlapping system, compounded by another wave in another related system resulting in a freak wave. Will these waves be forces of good? Will there be waves of destruction that compound too? I think yes to both.

The wave of climate change meets the waves of peak oil and financial crisis and consumerism. Boom. The wave of awakening-to-purpose compounds with social enterprise and social entrepreneurship, microfinance, spend-down philanthropy, and healthcare innovations. These are choppy waters. How these waves will interact is anyone’s guess. Which will amplify another? Which will deflect or reduce another? Will there be smooth waters ahead? Do we return to regular waves and patterns? Do we get a rogue wave? And does that change us?

If it were not for….

HildyGottlieb

What created the today you will build your future upon? Fill in the blank: If it weren’t for __ I wouldn’t be/have ___.

This twitter post inspired me to share my gratitude.

If it were not for… my network… I would be or have nearly anything I do have and am.

I can name names here. And I have at time in public and in private shared with those people that I am clear have been instrumental in getting me where I am. When I picture answering this question, I see a rippling wave spreading out from this moment. It converges at this time and this place, but the factors and people that had to be in place and in time in order to arrive here are manifold. Many many manifold. And this is not just true for me, it is also true of everyone else in this great overlapping ripple that at its best creates a wave. Perhaps even a rogue wave.

On a skinny puppy song I used to enjoy… there was a sample at the beginning, “is it me and my head or me and my body?” Now I think of this as “Is it me and my network or me and my environment.” Am I even a distinct thing beyond my network? Or distinct from my environment? I am so deeply comprised of the people who have touched my life. Their influence on me forms this palimpsest that makes up my being. In this layered collage, there are colors and sections that seem more vibrant than others, more noticeable. But the whole of the composition is from the whole of the experience. And so too with the landscapes I have been in. I am both the product and the agent of the environments I inhabit.

If it were not for you, I would not be me. Ripple ripple, overlap, and gap.

Magical Listening

Yes, social media is all about listening, you hear it all the time. I want to distinguish here between listening – as in I heard what you said and listening – as in I really took in what you said, chewed on it, and if it didn’t connect fully to me, I responded with questions. That seems like a weak distinction, let’s explore more. I think doing so is very worthwhile, for magical listening produces magical results.

I learned to listen when I was in coach training. Nothing very complicated… a very simple exercise that you can test yourself. First, we had an opportunity to give advice to our partners after hearing an issue they were exploring. Hmm, okay. Then we listened to them on another issue, taking in what they said and asking them for more. We asked them to explain their thoughts without imposing our own solutions. The difference in the results were so astounding! I still catch myself, at times, giving advice, I admit. However, at my best, the value I add to conversation is not my knowledge, but the space I create for the speaker to fully explore their own thinking.

coffee talk
Creative Commons License photo credit: AnyaLogic

In many cases, this makes sense. It is likely that the speaker knows more information about the situation. They have personal experience with it and the people involved. If I am really hearing them, I feel as if I am in their mind with them – moving from option to option, by their side. In some cases I may point back to something they have said and put it next to what they are saying now for comparison and alignment. This sounds pretty abstract, let me explain in another way.

Magical listening can be identified in person by the presence of some of the following characteristics:

  • Full eye engagement – either at the speaker or at what the speaker is looking at
  • Lack of interruptions – a magical listener doesn’t interrupt even when excited (I often fail at this one!)
  • Pauses – a magical listener lets a pause hang, giving time for reflection and encouragement to the speaker to continue exploring
  • Reflection – returning to the speaker what they have said, as in, “I think I understood you to be saying….”
  • Questions such as: tell me more about that, can you explain more about how those connect, what will that get for you, and is that a story you have about that?

Would you rather: have someone follow your words – hearing each fully? Let you lead and make space to explore? Or would you rather someone suggest options they think are best? (It might depend on the situation, as I can picture situations where each are appropriate. However, in my experience the latter is the default of most people.)

We long to be heard. We long for someone else to value us enough to hang on our words. We yearn for a sense of connection to someone outside of our own mind that values us enough to feel with us. Someone willing to step out of their ego-centric view of the world and walk with us in ours. When we are given that space, we can be our most creative, resourceful, and bold selves.

How can you be a more magical listener? The following is a list of things I notice myself doing, and I hope you will help add to this list.

  • Turn off your mental chatter and give all of your attention to what is being said to you as it is being said. Use any mental energy you have to notice what words are used, with what tone of voice and what body language.
  • Wait to think of what you want to say until after the other person finishes speaking, and then decide before speaking whether what you have to say is useful to you or to them? Is it a question or a statement? Is it a question you want the answer to or a question that will help them explore or gain clarity?
  • Notice emotional highs and lows and inquire into them. If someone can’t hold a gaze while saying something, ask about that. If someone’s face gets bright with joy, ask about that. Watch for the language of the body – does it resonate with what is being said? If not, ask about that.
  • Aim for your verbal contribution to be less than 10% of the conversation.
  • Use your body to indicate intense listening – eyes are either focused on the person you are speaking with or following their gaze, shoulders are squarely facing the speaker, arms are held open and show ease and patience (relaxed positions). If you must fidget, use it to take notes or draw in response to what you are hearing – make a mind map of the conversation.

How do you do magical listening? Please share in the comments! I want to learn to be a better listener too.

Value of Validation

Immeasurable but still acknowledge-able. Not the difference, because that relates to our currency conversations.

This video makes me laugh and cry. I think back on it fondly and look for it regularly, so I thought I would hold it here – for you and for me.

And hey, you are awesome. Did anyone ever tell you….