The Neighbourhood

I took a slightly different route this morning to get to Truth.Coffeecult to do my blogging (writing is apparently easier when you have a lovely coffee in hand).  I took the time to look around and take in the new places that have seemingly popped up overnight.  What I realised is that the neighbourhood is really very different from what I remember.  I have no idea of what treasure troves are around the corners and down the little side streets, but from what I saw, getting to know these new shops will be great fun (if not slightly alarming to the credit card). 

After making this wonderful discovery, I got to thinking that we are like that too, in a way.  We think we know ourselves and our limits and our resources (or other people, for that matter), and we stop paying attention and checking in regularly.  While we're focused elsewhere, we are continually growing, changing and adapting.. whether consciously or not, and before we realise, we have lost touch with the gems that are just down the side street and around the corner of our brain, and we continue believing things about ourselves that were out of date since lime green and purple was a popular fashion trend.

So, just as I would recommend having a good stroll around the neighbourhood and taking a different route so that you are aware of the things around you, and open to the novelty of your environment, I think it is an excellent practice to check in with yourself regularly and not assume that you know yourself, just because you've been living with you for your entire life.. 

Examine your assumptions, check in to see how you are feeling or responding in situations - challenge yourself to see how strong you have become.. Just like the wonderful vintage shops that I have discovered, there are brilliant little gems that you've picked up along the journey that you don't even know about yet! 

Keyboard of Life

 I had a little moment the other day.. I swear I was totally sober at the time.  I started looking at my keyboard and came up with a metaphor for life.  I thought it was novel and possibly interesting enough to share it with you guys. 

Keyboards are made of lots of letters and numbers.  They respond to our input, and can make up any multitude of ideas, concepts, communications, etc - both negative or positive.  The keys (like our environment) are an instrument of our input, and the result is a direct reflection of our mind at the moment of creation.  Our world (as we see it) is a direct reflection of our mindspace - so when you are happy, all the birds are singing, people smile at you, and when you are miserable, those fluffy white cottonwool clouds turn grey and ominous, and the bluebirds of happiness are sitting in those trees looking as though they want your eyeballs for breakfast. 

I then looked at the side keys.. things that are important to us in many ways - Space, fn, direction, ctrl, esc, home.  It is really difficult to create anything meaningful without these.  (I drew a bit of a blank with page up, down, tab and caps lock, and then realised that even the arb characters in our life can be useful in their place). 

Then we have something that is really useful to identify the important things in our life (or communications) - the Shift key.  We can use it to prioritise things - like Important Places, TONE OF VOICE, even reveal things that we don't think are important.  Shift to me would be a great name for a coaching practice.. because we try to effect paradigm shifts, shifts in consciousness, shift in our way of being, capitalise something that was previously unnoticed. 

So, at your very fingertips is the universe - you can create what you want, delete what you don't, put your thoughts out there, or keep them to yourself.  You can reach out and touch someone, or wage a war with words.  It's really not so different from 'real life' after all, is it?

END (for this post, anyway)

The culture of competition

As I watch my son grow up and develop, I am constantly amazed at how much he learns from one day to the next.  I know theoretically about the learning curve at this age (he's 20 months now), but to see it in real life is totally humbling.  I put him in creche when he was 14  months, and was mortified when he was put into the 'nest' with the babies because he couldn't yet walk.  It's not that he COULDN'T walk,  it's really that he didn't want to walk on his own.  He would only walk when he held someone's hand.. it was a confidence thing more than anything else.  Still, it was my first realisation that he might not be the absolute best at everything (okay, really, the realisation wasn't about Joshua, who is perfect in every way.. it was more about me not being the best at everything, because I would have taught him to walk if I knew how to teach him a bit better). 

Image: Paul Martin Eldridge

(Cue the dramatic music)... Enter the first realisation of a nasty little emotion that I had, up till now, been able to deny quite effectively.. I'm competitive.  Yes, my friends will read this and laugh, thinking - "you only realised this now?" but, in my defense, I can justify quite well. :)

This is a difficult thing for me to reconcile, because I believe that competitiveness is an undesirable trait of our culture.  I don't believe it is a natural thing for people to be competitive, because ultimately it generates 99 losers for every 100 people, and as social beings, we would get much further working together than antagonistically.

Competition dictates that if you are not first place, your efforts are not worthwhile.  Even if first place got 85 and you got 84.5, that 84.5 in a competition suddenly went from a triumph to a "so close", all because someone else did better.   It's a thought process that dictates: I can only win if I make others losers.  Where is the logic in that??

Competition is the antithesis of abundance and, in my opinion, a major factor in our lack of self esteem as a society.  The problem is that when people are led to believe that they're less than the fantastic uniquely wonderful beings that we are, we either don't realise our potential, or we hide our light, or try to bring down others so that we have company in our imagined mediocrity (mediocrity loves company even more than misery..)

I read somewhere:  If you want to be incrementally better: Be competitive. If you want to be exponentially better: Be cooperative.

I invite you to join me in finding ways to be cooperative to achieve our goals. I would love to know what you are achieving by working with others!

Blogging

Blogging is difficult.  Writing is easy(ish), but putting my thoughts out there for all and sundry to read (and possibly judge) is difficult.  How this translates is that I sometimes put it off.. I start a number of posts, and then let myself be distracted by the other things that are going on in my life. 

So I am sitting at Truth.coffeecult, with Adin Van Ryneveld and a whole bunch of other very cool people.  He's organised these blogging gatherings to motivate fellow bloggers to actually get writing.  The fact that it is working shows me that yes, sometimes you DO need the frills (like good coffee, great music, fab company and oh so divine Daniela's Deliciously Decadent macarons) to get something done. 

Another thing that hints to me that Adin may be onto something is that every single person who is sitting inside here has a laptop!  I feel quite cool, really!

So, blogging does not necessarily have to be a lot of (ahem) slogging. If I am to walk the talk, and treat myself as I do my clients, I am going to be incorporating balance in my life by doing the work in an environment that appeals to my other senses, and get some intelligent adult company fix at the same time.

In fact, another benefit of today is that Adin has shown me how to import my blogs to my Facebook Page (Chadwick Coaching), so now you can be super lazy efficient and only sign up to my FB page to read all my musings.. that is, when FB repairs the link..

Synchronicity

Image: Salvatore Vuono

About two years ago, when I was 4 months pregnant with my son, Mike & I were driving home when we saw a man being attacked by two others. He was being thrown to the ground and no-one was stopping to help. I was terrified. Normally, I'm the first to want to help on a scene, and I did a first aid course specifically so that I could help someone in this situation. But, being pregnant after such a long time of trying unsuccessfully, I was scared. Mike, who is normally the one who doesn't want me in the thick of things, said to me "babe, we HAVE to stop - this guy is going to get killed".

I knew he was right, and I knew that if I didn't stop, I would regret it for the rest of my life, fearful or not. So we stopped, and made a loud noise, and the muggers ran away. The guy was in adrenaline mode, and actually got up and tried to chase them, but he was older, and bleeding. I called to him to please come back and let the security (who was now on the scene in full force) chase the criminals. The guy came back - he was in his 50's, and had been stabbed 5 times.

Inexperienced as I was, I took out my first aid kit, asked permission to tend to him, put on my gloves, and co-ordinated the people to call the ambulance, and find someone more experienced at first aid than I was. I cleaned the wounds and made conversation to make sure that my 'patient' was not in shock. He told me where he was from (about 3 hours from town), and that his wife was not expecting him. He asked me not to call her, because he didn't want to worry her unnecessarily.

I convinced him to let me call her anyway, because as a wife, we want to be able to trust that our family is okay, and it would be awful to find out after the fact. She didn't answer the phone, so I kept her number and would keep trying.

He had been stabbed 5 times in his chest, arm, neck and back. Myself and a more experienced first aider cleaned him up and I reported his wounds to the paramedics when they arrived. As the ambulance took him away, I managed to get hold of his wife. I explained what happened and reassured her that he was not in a critical condition.

I was exhausted and emotional as Mike & I drove home. I hadn't felt any movement from my baby in a while, and I rubbed my tummy and spoke to Josh. I asked im to please give me a good kick so I could know he was ok. He responded with a fabulous nudge.

This isn't even the remarkable part of the story yet.. a couple of days later I phoned to check up on how the guy was doing. He was recovering well, and would be back home that evening. I started to chat with the wife, and said that I knew another person with the same first name as her in the area.. and I'd never heard of the place before then. I asked how big it was, and if she perhaps knew my friend. She asked for the surname, and I told her. She paused, and said, "Janet Chadwick?" (I hadn't told her my surname).. it turns out that I had helped the husband of a fellow coaching student, who lived 3 hours away, and had just moved from Natal to Cape Town.

I was on the edge of crying for about a week after that. It is very difficult to feel like we are all alone or that there isn't a greater purpose to our lives when the universe acts in ways that defy coincidence.

That brings me to yesterday. My husband sent me this arb link about not putting laptops on your lap, because the heat can damage your skin. It's called Toasted Skin Syndrome, and it looks like a weird mottled tan. I teased him about sending me bizarre links. That afternoon, I was visited by a great friend of mine. After catching up, she told me she had this strange rash on her stomach, and that the doctors were totally confused by it and had no idea what it was. They originally thought it was a fungus as she had recently been travelling to exotic places. She showed it to me. It was Toasted Skin Syndrome. I was amazed. I asked her if she had been hugging a hot water bottle regularly, and she had... after months of treatments and a referral to a dermatologist (she is due to go this week), we could put her mind at ease a bit by realising what it was.

When I feel like I'm isolated, or not connected to the outside world, I remind myself that when we simply remove our blinkers for a moment, there are powerful reminders out there of how we are here for a reason.

Living



Peacock @ the zoo



Since our son was born almost two years ago, my husband and I decided to expose him to the wonders of the places around us - all the outdoors things that we can enjoy as a family. 

What a fabulous privilege for us!  Our son has motivated us to actually live beyond our four walls, and move away from our computers.  It's not always easy - sometimes I would prefer to stay at home and play Starcraft (hahaha, like that ever happens anymore), or get the housework done, or do something "productive".  Sometimes it is difficult to summon the energy, but the idea of his reaction to the novel surrounds gets us out there. 

The world around us has so very very much to offer, and today we had decided to go to the zoo.  We saw lots of animals: deer, zebra, peacocks, tigers and lions.  Joshua was excited most by the zebra and the lion, because he recognised them from the books that he has. 

While Josh was running around the grass with my husband, I stood underneath a tree with white flowers, and a breeze picked up, making the petals fall to the ground like snowflakes.  In that second, I had a perfect moment of serenity.  I realised that in even the smallest things that we do for others, we are rewarded by the universe, even when the act is reward enough.   

I believe that we live in a benevolent world, and that there are opportunities everywhere that are just waiting to be enjoyed.. whatever your reason!