Take a seat #2...

Ever since I wrote this earlier blog post inspired by an abandoned chair or two on the street, I keep seeing them around everywhere. And each one seems to have its own message to share, inviting me to ‘take a seat’ for a moment in the perspective it offers.

Take this one, for instance.
A giant, soft spongy recliner, just made for sitting into and never getting out of – perfectly set in front of the ‘IN USE 24 Hrs’ sign behind it.

It reminds me of those big, easy habits or mindsets it might be tempting to get into. Lean right back and kick the footrest bit out in front, if you have one, for maximum comfort (and minimum ability to get out of them in a hurry).

They can seem so permanent, that they almost need their own post-box (which the chair in the photo also conveniently has).

So what about in your life?

Are there any habits or mindsets or opinions that have seduced you into adopting them 24/7? Anything you’ve not re-evaluated for a while because it’s just a bit too comfy?

Sometimes, of course, comfort can be a very worthwhile goal.
But where is that tipping point, when comfort kips over into constraint?

When something’s ‘in use 24 hrs’ it can become difficult to really see.
It starts slipping under the radar, becoming part of the furniture of our everyday.

So I wonder how you know when it’s time to sit up and take notice of that stuff.
To reassess whether this particular place/habit/thought you’re occupying is still the right one for the person you are today.

And perhaps to find out ‘where you sit’ on the things that matter for you.

© Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010

PS. I’ve recently found another place to ‘sit’ as well – over at my new blog, The Therapist Within, at Psych Central.
You’re welcome to pull-up a chair and join me if you like: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/therapist-within

(And, consequently, I’ll also be reducing the posts here to once a fortnight).

Rattling the cage...

There’s a metaphor in here somewhere, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Something about seeing this elderly woman, back turned to the windows, alone in a room full of cages, chilled me as I walked past. I had to stop and capture the moment.

(I’m sure the actual woman, herself, is probably enjoying the winter sun through the panes and possibly even sipping a cup of tea in this little café. But from the outside, this moment first seemed to speak of something darker).

For one day, we will all be old like this – and that’s if we’re lucky…

There will come a time when we must all turn our back on the day. On all our days.
A time when there will be no more such days for us.

And when that happens, we can only hope that we’ve released all the parts of us that needed to fly free – that we haven’t kept too much under lock and key, preferring to stay caged because flight seemed a scary thing at the time.

So what about you, where you’re currently at in your life?
Is there any part of you that longs to escape any cages of convention?
To be let out into the light.
To be given the chance to stretch its wings.

What unfinished business – or perhaps even unstarted business – is calling for your attention?
Any secret talents, dreams, overdue conversations, or experiments in living?
What would you really like to do?
What matters to you?

What might it take to open the door for these things and give them a way out of the cage?
What’s the smallest way you could set this stuff in motion?
How might it feel to embark on that (to ‘rattle the cage’ a bit)?

(And, perhaps more importantly, how might it feel if you never took the chance and tried?)


(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010


PS. The photo is part of Point & Shoot

Colour outside the lines...

Again, local graffiti has got me thinking, and offered something to ponder in this sea of beige.
I especially like the way the railing underneath seem to add to the statement, bringing three-dimensional lines into the picture. Bars.

Did you colour-in much as a child?
Remember how hard it was, initially, to learn to colour inside the lines? How frustrating? Yet most of us eventually got it.

Learned to trace the shapes someone else had drawn.
Learned to put colour only where we were told to and not where we ‘shouldn’t’.
Even learned what colour certain things were ‘supposed’ to be.

And not just in a colouring-in kind of way…

For there are many lines drawn for us: in society, in our families, in our habits, in our minds.
Things we ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ do.
(Things we ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ be...)

Some of this stuff can be useful, and even protective, at times.

But sometimes the lines feel like they’re mounting up, banding together, until all around us we find a cage of ‘shoulds’. And seemingly no way out.

What might it be like to question some of these lines sometimes?
To query their place in your life right now?
To possibly break the bounds and spread some colour into untouched areas?
Perhaps even to draw some lines anew?

What kind of lines might you draw?
Where would you like more colour in your life? (inside or outside these lines?)
And which colours? Would you introduce a whole new shade into your palette?

Simple questions, and kind of strange ones.
But important.
For where you draw the line, and where you choose to colour, can impact the evolving artwork of your life…
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(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010
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PS The photo is part of Point and Shoot

Black hat thinking...

This black hat in the photo was on a pile of dirt at a local train station recently (on the other side of the tracks).
Has it been lost? Dumped? Tossed out the window?
Who knows? But it’s not on the head of its owner.

Dr Edward de Bono (who I recently saw speaking at the Happiness and its Causes conference) has a theory about black hats. In fact, he came up with a whole system of six ‘thinking hats’, each one a different colour for different aspects of our thought processes.

For de Bono, the black one is about critical thinking. When we don this hat, we’re coming up with the reasons not to do something. We’re seeing the potential problems and pitfalls in a situation. We’re raining on the parade.

Yet de Bono sees this hat as being just as valid as any other. It has its own gifts to give.

So when I saw this black hat abandoned by the railway, I started wondering…

What might it mean to throw out the so-called ‘negative’ part of our thinking? To lose our black hat, relentlessly ‘look on the bright side’, try never to experience the darker thoughts in life (and have no room left for the hard stuff)?
Sometimes it seems tempting to try, but is it even possible? Would we really want to?

And what about all the other kinds of ‘blackness’ that seep into our lives – the heartbreak, the sadness, depression, grief? Might it be possible that these things hold their own unique learnings along with their darkness, too? Might they also have something important to share with us?

If so, then what might the darkness in your life be saying to you?

Could it be hinting that something is missing, or not quite right for you yet?
Could it be pointing to a value that’s important for you to live by?
Could it be whispering about change or adaptation?
Might it help you identify what you need to do to look after yourself or your loved ones right now?
Or maybe it's showing you who, and how, you love?

If your pain or darkness could talk about the things that matter for you, what might they speak about?

What might you say in return?

And how might it be to embrace some of these learnings?
To really build them into your life?

(and not just keep them under your hat…)
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(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010

PS if the thoughts ever get really dark, and they feel just too much to handle, you can call Lifeline any time of the day or night to talk them over and get some help... just call 13 11 14

Spin...

You don’t have to travel far to start hearing spin. Between politics and advertising, we’re pretty much surrounded by it.

In fact, often, you don’t even have to leave your own headspace to find it. For many of us have our very own favourite ‘broken records’ spinning on high rotation in our minds. Soundtracks to our very lives.

Sometimes these can be so commonplace that it’s hard to actually hear them. They just meld into the background, camouflaged, a bit like the ‘muzak’ in shopping centres that starts out sounding kitschy and ends up unnoticed. But they can subtly affect your whole shopping – and living – experience.

So which ‘records’ have you often got on inside your mind? (And what spin have they spun?)
Are there any tracks that just keep repeating and repeating? What do their lyrics say?
Are they making you question your worth?
Or telling you that you don’t matter?
Or that you should know better than this?
Or that you’ll never amount to much?
See if you can catch what they’re actually on about.

When did that stuff first get on the turntable? Was there an event that might have caused you to originally pick up these thoughts? Or are they family favourites that got handed down to you?

Have you ever had the chance to question whether this particular spin is still relevant to your life today – does it still hold true for you? (And was it ever completely true?)

If you could update your repertoire and maybe add something a little more uplifting to your play list, how might you expand your collection? What other tracks might your life benefit from? What kind of soundtrack might you more consciously create?

(And what lyrics might actually be truer than the automatic spin?)
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(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010
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PS. The vinyl record in the photo relates to a local art exhibition, ‘Medium: Vinyl’

Get well soon...

This ad stands on a busy intersection, silently sending its well-wishes into peak hour traffic and the hundreds of people that scurry past on foot. It almost seems to be commenting on the kind of mad rush we’ve built into our society. Wishing us well collectively.

Usually, though, ‘get well soon’ applies to one person at a time.
And usually when they’re obviously sick.
(And usually to someone else).

Which got me wondering…

What exactly does wellness look like to you?
Is it just an absence of obvious illness or pain? Or is there something more to it?
(Something about flourishing or thriving perhaps?)

What might the markers and measures of wellness be for you?
How could you tell if you were feeling it? What would the signs be?
(And where might that put you on your scale of wellness at the moment?)

What about the ‘get’ part of ‘get well soon’? How might you ‘get’ this sense of wellness or invite more of it into your life?

If you’re feeling a long way from well, what might you write on your own ‘prescription’?
Maybe you’d prescribe more of the things that enliven you.
Or less of something that drains you.
Maybe just ‘take one quiet cup of tea, twice daily.’
Perhaps you’d let more spontaneity in (‘take a course of anti-robotics’).
Maybe it’d be about healing your relationships.
Or asking for support.

Whatever it is for you, I wonder what it might feel like to take some steps towards it?
To get closer to your wellness soon.

(And how often might you want to do an internal ‘check-up’ to monitor its progress in your life?)
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(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010

Wish...

Once upon a time…
Isn’t that often how stories about wishes start?

I was thinking about the nature of wishing, especially the idea of wishing things were different (and what that might mean), when I noticed this ad further along the train station platform:

“Wish”

The trains sped past it, but the figure on the billboard (of course) stayed stationary. She and her wish stood separate from the action, as a procession of opportunities and destinations slid by.

Perhaps if wishing is attached to a sense of intention or motivation, it can provide a kind of springboard for change or growth.
But somehow, just the wishing on its own – all that ‘if only’ stuff about wishing that circumstances were different or that people would change or that relationships were ‘better’ – seems quite a bind.

For only seeing how things might be can sometimes blind us to how things are.

And, at some level, yearning for a situation other than the one we’re in seems to mean wishing our current life away…
And where might that leave us?

So what about you? Do you find yourself longing for things to magically change somehow? Wishing that a relationship would heal? Wishing things would ‘go back to normal’?

What might it be like to consider stopping for a moment? Maybe taking a look around and finding out how things actually are in your life? (not just where you might wish they'd be).
Perhaps it might be painful. Possibly even unbearable. But maybe strangely liberating, too.

For perhaps when we see where we’re actually standing, then the next step might become clearer, too. And the one after that.

And maybe that way we could gradually move a little closer to where we’d like to be, rather than be stuck always wishing from afar…
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(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010

Welcome to wonder...

This shop window sign actually says ‘Welcome to Wonderland’ but the reflections on the glass have blocked some letters out – and an invitation just to ‘wonder’ sounds so much more evocative somehow…

A chance to:
• ponder, be curious and perhaps even to question some things
• and to marvel at the unexpected.

What might it be like to take up that invitation?

What could that kind of curiosity unearth about who you are?
Which parts of your life or relationships might you investigate or perhaps even query?
Are there any other ways of being that you might like to try out?

And what about the other bit? The wonderment part.

Is there much of that sort of surprise or joy in your life just now?
What meaning do you make of that?
Do you want to allow space for a little more of that stuff?

(If so, how might that happen? Maybe you need to heal something first. Is there one small step you could take in that direction?)

For whatever else today holds – whichever pressures or obligations or challenges or habits – it also holds your life.

And you’re welcome to wonder…

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(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010

Take a seat...

The streets are alive with metaphors sometimes. Just recently, I came upon this scene and couldn’t help but wonder about it.

It seemed to speak of having ‘an armchair view of the world’ somehow. Or perhaps about deciding ‘where you sit’ on an issue.

So where do you sit?
Where do you routinely view the world from?
Have you got a particular perspective that you automatically seem to take?
Perhaps it’s a slightly skeptical stance, where you habitually find it difficult to trust other people? Maybe a spot where you doubt your own self-worth and automatically assume that others are somehow ‘better’? Or maybe something else entirely….

Where do you drag your chair to, to get your view?
Is it isolated? In an environment you feel comfortable in, or somewhere you never quite seem to fit?

Could you imagine shifting your chair to another location?
Or are you staying put? (Sitting pretty)

And what kind of chair is it that you’re in?
Velour?
Hard-backed?
Brand new?
Broken?
(And what difference might that make to how you sit back into your life?)

Out here, on the street, it seems clear that if you change the chair, or where it’s placed, you change your view.

So if you could choose any kind of chair,

in any kind of place,

what would that look like?

What might you be able to see from this new vantage point? (About your life? About your self?)

And how would it feel to imagine taking a seat there, even for a moment?...

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(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010

Time out...

It was just after daylight-saving ended that I happened upon this clock in the gutter, abandoned in a bag of rubbish.

It’s been ticking over in my mind ever since – something about the way time was literally thrown out; while, collectively, we decided to shift our clocks back an hour, in a joint decision to make time suit our needs.

Hours can seem like such solid, set measurements. Until you remember that they’re an invention…

What does it mean to live our lives according to these arbitrary periods? To divide each day into 24 bits and then fit our experiences in around them?

And, more broadly, do we also live our lives according to other, greater, timelines? Like the things we’re ‘supposed’ to have done by the time we’re 20, 30, 50 or 70?

Who decides this stuff? Who sets out what a ‘good’ life should look like? Who gets to say what is ‘normal’ for each of us to achieve or to become by a certain age?

(And what might it be like to stray from that timeline, and wander off on a course of your own setting?)

Come time-travelling for a moment; away from our fast-paced world, and back, back, to an era of sun-dials. On overcast days, there are no shadows… and no time to measure on the dial. No hours, no minutes. Just life to live. Now.

Returning to the present-day, if there were no hours here, and no fixed timelines of a ‘good’ or ‘normal’ life, might you change the way you live your ‘nows’?

If you clocked-off for a moment, and let the flurry of deadlines drop, what else might come into focus?

How else might you measure your days? (Your life?)

And, if you were to set your own timeline, what might be important for you to achieve or to experience or to become?



(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010

No stopping...

This sign is supposed to be about where not to park your car. But every time I walk past it, it seems to be pointing towards something much more important than that. For each time I pass by, the leaves behind the arrow have changed colour, or sometimes have dropped off completely, following the seasons. So the sign reminds me of time passing.

The seasons slip by, and there's 'NO STOPPING' them. And our lives pass with them, and it seems there's 'NO STOPPING' that progression either. Today, the last day of summer, the sign's message rings especially clear...

Yet how easy it can be to forget this. To recklessly pretend that somehow there will always be another summer, another season, another day to a life that often feels like it has no end. We start 'another Monday', and kid ourselves that there even is such a thing, when each day, each moment, is utterly unique (and another one gone from us).

It's confronting. Frightening, even. But there's a gift of sorts, here in the turmoil. For in facing the finiteness of our lives, and the relentlessness of time driving us on, we can also get closer to what really matters to us. We can uncover what it is that we are afraid to lose. Or anxious to experience. Or grateful to have in our lives.

In this way, our fears of dying can almost become signposts of their own, pointing out the values and experiences, people and relationships that we treasure, and that we want more of in this life. However long we have to lead it.

I wonder what your signposts might point to?

(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010